Resumo

A challenge for public policies is the inclusion of different people in the productive process or in the most diverse aspects of life. this study may observe its performance in social networks and verify how social networks help people, contributing to the reduction of the risks to which these consumers are subjected in their daily lives. More, unstable social relationships, loneliness, depression, and anxiety are characteristic of the life of the ASD sufferer, it worsens significantly when social relations do not exist. Family members can get some support.

How and in what ways do virtual communities benefit autistic people and their families? Do they benefit from this, improving their general condition or reducing the risks they are subjected to? This article aims to understand how such platforms allow the formation of virtual communities for the support and exchange of information, as well as the inclusion of people with ASD (autism spectrum disorders) by comparing brand virtual communities from two countries, five from Brazil and one, from the USA.

Consumer wellbeing is related to socially responsible business practices involve business practices designed to support social causes, improve community well-being, and protect the environment (Sirgy & Lee, 2008). Technologies such as social media have helped the education of consumers at risk. Risk can be access by the level of vulnerability, speed of change required, level of awareness and level of focus. All these factors are present in ASD issue. Parents seek for information, making health content get viral on social networks. Virtual communities are organized, allowing the social exchange

We analyzed the content of different virtual communities linked to autism. Amongst interpretative methods, netnography (Kozinets, Scarabotto & Palmentier, 2018), including manual coding on each community, and a phenomenological context evaluation (Peat et al., 2018, Thompson, 1997) were performed. The selection of communities took place in two ways: the number of community members on the Facebook platform, their accounts on Twitter, and the appearance of it in search rankings on Google.

As results, it was possible to identify that the contribution of virtual communities is allowing dialogue among autists' relatives, releasing their suffer and sharing good practices. Furthermore, health services and products related to autism can be promoted and distributed, including tips or enlightening of controversial. Sharing is higher on motivational content and events, such as the autism awareness day, on April 2nd, or autism pride day, June 18th. Influentials are important to boost the spreading of content. However, UA community content is more viral.

The goal of this work was to understand how social networks can contribute to the issue of ASD and how users and their families can benefit from the content analysis of virtual communities related to the topic on Facebook. In the communities analyzed, it was identified that among the most viralized posts are those with predominantly emotional content. Posts by famous autistics are also very prone to get viral. Also noteworthy are the inspirational / motivational posts related to the recovery of the self-esteem of the autistic and their families.

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