Extremismo e lutas por falso reconhecimento : uma análise dos grupos masculinistas brasileiros

Abstract

Claims for legitimacy from intolerant groups are one of the challenges that threaten democratic perspectives in times like these. Thus, based on the understanding that epistemic crises cause an inversion of logic, this research seeks to analyze the appropriation of emancipatory discourses by anti-democratic groups, more specifically by masculinist groups. We anchor our theoretical concern in the triad of legitimacy, intolerance, and recognition by asking how the intolerant groups struggle for legitimacy. And how does legitimacy lead to the search for illegitimate recognition? As a central question, we ask: how do Brazilian masculinist groups, organized in the so-called manosphere, fight for legitimacy and false recognition? In order to operationalize and tension the concepts, our analyses focus on manosphere podcast episodes from ten streaming platforms: Apple Podcasts, Bit Chute, Castbox, Deezer, Google Podcasts, Listen Notes, MGTOW TV, Soundcloud, Spotify, and YouTube. After the automated transcription of the sample of episodes (n=2,490), we carried out an assisted content analysis with the help of OpenAI's GPT-4. For the content analysis assisted by advanced language models (LLM), the material went through the following phases: a) development of the codebook and subsequent co-development with an advanced language model; b) human coding of a random sample of the content and consequent reliability test; c) validation between the LLM and human coding; d) fine-tuning and general coding. The time frame for selecting the corpus was all the episodes - which were filtered - up to May 31, 2023. We have the following specific objectives: i) to analyze the intolerance articulated by these groups: against which subgroups of women? How are they presented? ii) to investigate the perceptions of harm claimed by these groups and the justifications offered in their political agendas; iii) to understand the claims to group identity, values, and principles underlying the group's internal and external boundaries. Thus, by considering the perspective adopted by masculinist groups from the critique of the dangerous character of these discourses, our research addresses the complexity of the consequences of violent discourses in the public sphere.