Does my family exist? Deliberation and political conversation in internet

Abstract

The contemporary definition of the family has raised social, political, symbolic and religious questions. In this article, we analyze the repercussion of the audiovisual campaign carried out by the Brazilian dictionary Houaiss that called the society to send suggestions of new concepts for the entry “family”. The video, published on YouTube, has generated comments that reveal divergent positions on the rights of homoaffective families. We investigate communication exchanges from the perspective of online civil conversations and analyze the arguments presented in the comments. The results point, on the one hand, to hegemonic discourses centered on hatred and disrespect, and on the other, on the use of love and the right to diversity as the core of the comments.