Football is Politics: Analyzing Public Emotions in Neymar Jr.'s Case and <i>PEC das Praias</i> Through the Instagram Accounts of <i>Folha de S.Paulo</i> and <i>O Globo</i> Newspapers

This exploratory study demonstrates how a popular sports personality can influence public emotions regarding a controversial political issue. The focus is on the involvement of football player Neymar Jr. in discussions about PEC das Praias , a constitutional amendment proposal related to potential privatizations of coastal areas. The analysis corpus consists of 3,307 comments posted on the Instagram pages of the two largest-circulation newspapers in Brazil— Folha de S.Paulo and O Globo —between May 29 and June 7, 2024. The research method employed is a mixed thematic content analysis, which concluded that the athlete's involvement gave prominence to the debate and, consequently, influenced public emotions by increasing engagement and leading to polarization. Negative emotions, particularly indignation and frustration, were specially amplified. The results confirm that sports personalities are able to intensify political debates and shape public opinion, supporting the idea that social media amplifies political emotions, thus impacting citizens’ behavior and decisions in this context.