When Democracy Breaks: A Critical Media Psychology Analysis of January 6 and January 8
@jorgebscomm for @empowervmedia T wo acts of political violence. Two of the world's largest democracies. Two years and two days apart . On January 6, 2021 , supporters of Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol. On January 8, 2023 , supporters of Jair Bolsonaro stormed the Presidential Palace, the National Congress, and the Supreme Federal Court in Brasília — simultaneously, and live on social media. These were not coincidences of the calendar. A new paper from EMPOWERVERSE titled Democratic Rupture and Media Psychology: A Critical Comparative Analysis of the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection and the January 8, 2023 Brazilian Federal Buildings Attack , argues that they were locally embedded expressions of the same structural moment: one in which social media affordances , political disinformation, and authoritarian populist leadership converge to make anti-democratic collective violence not just possible, but psychologically foreseeable. "Democrac...
