Plataformização, poder e resistência: as manifestações golpistas pós-eleição na enciclopédia Wikipédia Lusófona

Abstract

This research aims to understand which sources the native digital encyclopedia Lusophone Wikipedia, part of the international non-profit project Wikimedia Foundation, relies on to construct entries and how they can be analyzed in terms of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic structures. The study is set against the backdrop of the phenomenon of platformization, with the growing control exercised by big techs in the digital world (a group of technology companies represented by: Alphabet – responsible for Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta – responsible for Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, and Microsoft), which exert symbolic, economic and dominating power over the activities of digital platforms and their users. In this scenario, this research addresses the subversion of the initial principles of the web as an internet for everyone, with the purpose of examining initiatives that still reflect its initial purposes and can be considered as processes of resistance and agency against digital capitalism and the model of data colonization adopted by technology giants. As an object of knowledge in Communication, we adopt as a principle that the web was created, in its early days, to be a democratic space for interactions, free and universal knowledge. As an empirical object, the purpose is to understand whether the Lusophone Wikipedia can be an instrument of resistance in the contemporary environment of platformization. As one of the 253 versions of the Wikipedia project, founded in 2001, would the Lusophone Wikipedia be an instrument of resistance against platformization? Our focus, in this research, is to examine a new editorial strategy of the Wikipedia project, focused on covering breaking news, as a way to differentiate itself from other digital encyclopedias. Thus, we analyze entries on the post-election coup demonstrations of 2022, which culminated in the attempted coup on January 8, 2023. We observe that the Lusophone Wikipedia acts as a platform of resistance amid the hegemonic movement of platformization. However, when entering the sphere of breaking news, the encyclopedia tends to reproduce the logic of mainstream companies in journalism, with more human and material resources.