Que vírus é esse? Reflexos da cultura hacker na vida política brasileira

Abstract

This thesis is structured from the perspective of digital culture and its political consequences for the field of culture and citizenship. With the intention of investigating the state of the art of hacker culture in Brazil, the research starts from the hypothesis that there are reflections, mainly in the early 2000s, in Brazilian political life, of some of the main assumptions of ethics and hacker culture in initiatives, narratives and policies of the country. This scenario would be in line with the political process of social appropriation of technology. Institutional sites based on free software, creation of a Hacker Laboratory in the Chamber of Deputies and the distribution of equipment for broadband internet access as part of one of the main public policies of national culture, can provide us with evidence of the hacker culture in Brazilian political life and, furthermore, clues about the impact of communication technologies on the redefinition of languages and modes of social interaction, mainly in what concerns the State-civil society relationship. Our research aimed to identify what would be the reflections of the hacker culture in the national political scenario, and, from this, to assume about a field of dispute, in which the intention is to improve the current political system in the face of the new political cultures of contemporary times. From a critical analysis approach and a study based on bibliographical research, content analysis and semi-structured interviews, we were able to perceive narratives, attitudes and policies managed by national political agents had reflections of the culture, ethics and hacker thinking, mainly, in the beginning of the 2000s. With the research, it was possible to understand this scenario as an expression of social demand, articulated via digital culture, for the decentralization of political power, and for an expansion of the traditional channels of representation through free access, transparency and social participation. Keywords: Hacker culture; digital culture; social participation; Contemporary Brazil.