Visual analysis uncovers hybrid warfare strategies in Rio's favelas via social media, suggesting a shift in urban perceptions.
Penetrating the everyday and mundane, social media has become an important political battleground for hybrid warfare and far-right claims. In this visual analysis of the Special Operations Unit of Rio de Janeiro's Military Police Instagram feed, we examine how Rio's favelas are aesthetically produced as warzones, and their inhabitants as enemies to be eliminated and transformed. We argue that the images shared draw on a repertoire of right-wing moralism and cosmology as well as a vernacular influenced by social media logics of engagement that contribute to the algorithmic militarization of everything, everywhere.
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Salem et al. (2025) studied this question.
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