Dialogue in campaign: an analysis of the communicative strategies of confrontation in the Brazilian presidential election of 2014

Abstract This article intends to identify the dialogue, as well as its nature and contribution to the clarification of the electoral proposals, of the three main candidates competing in the 2014 presidential elections: Dilma Rousseff (PT), Aécio Neves (PSDB), and Marina Silva (PSB). The primary source of information was the Free Time of Electoral Advertising (block and spots) aired during the two rounds of the elections. The first objective was to elaborate a quantitative analysis of the occurrence of direct dialogue between the candidacies, identifying the candidates who had the most dialogue. The second objective was to qualify the nature of the dialogue undertaken by each candidacy, classifying it based on three categories: deconstruction of personal image; deconstruction of political image; criticism of the opponent’s political project. Such classification will assess to what extent the dialogue between the candidates has allowed discerning with greater or lesser clarity the ideological-political contours between the governmental projects in dispute. It is concluded that the occurrence of dialogue between the candidates in 2014 was increased by the sudden rise in competitiveness of the campaign.