INFORMATION MEDIATION OF AFRICAN-BASED RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS ON INSTAGRAM

Authors

Keywords:

information mediation, african matrix religions, Instagram, Rapper Zeus, social media

Abstract

The research analyzes the mediation of information on rapper Zeus's Instagram profile, through informational content and mediation strategies related to African matrix religions. This is a basic, exploratory-descriptive study with a qualitative approach, adopting Content Analysis as the analytical technique. The corpus consisted of eight reels published in August 2025 and their captions. The analysis identified six thematic categories: Rituals and Festivities; Religious Diversity; Presentation of Entities; Social Criticism and Socioeconomic Education; History and Resistance; and Personal Experience. The results show that the mediation carried out by the artist, through accessible language, multimodal resources and interaction with the public, promotes the dissemination of ancestral knowledge, the confrontation of religious intolerance and the strengthening of African matrix religious traditions. It is concluded that the profile constitutes a space of information mediation and highlights the potential of social media to promote resistance and respect for otherness.

Author Biographies

  • Luiz Felipe da Silva Candido, Federal University of Paraíba

    Master’s student in Information Science at the Graduate Program in Information Science, Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB). Research Fellow in the Celso Furtado Program for Educational Innovation and Regional Development (FAPESQ/PB).

  • Jhonata Monteiro Cabral, Federal University of Paraíba

    Master's student in Information Science at the Federal University of Paraíba.

  • Gisele Rocha Côrtes, Federal University of Paraíba

    PhD in Sociology from the Paulista State University Júlio de Mesquita Filho (UNESP), with a Master's degree in Sociology from the same institution. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Pedagogy (1996) and in Social Sciences (1998), both from UNESP. She is currently an Associate Professor IV in the Department of Information Science at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) and a faculty member in the Graduate Program in Information Science at UFPB (PPGCI/UFPB). She leads the Research and Study Group on Mediation, Information Representation, and Social Difference Markers (GeMINAS).

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Published

2026-11-13

Conference Proceedings Volume

2026: XXVI ENCONTRO NACIONAL DE PESQUISA E PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM CIÊNCIA DA INFORMAÇÃO

Section

GT 3 – Mediação, Circulação e Apropriação da Informação

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