A legitimação discursiva do trabalho da imprensa pelo portal Folha de São Paulo em notícias no primeiro ano da pandemia de Covid-19 no Brasil

Abstract

For several periods during the press's news coverage on the actions of the federal executive in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, the verbal violence used by former president Jair Bolsonaro (JB) with journalists drew our attention. From this, there was a need to question and reflect on the role of the press in covering these facts, in its place as an intermediary between society and the constituted powers (legislative, executive and judiciary) and in a scenario of such disregard for life caused by the former president's government. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is to analyze the process of discursive legitimization of the work of the press by Portal Folha de São Paulo (PFSP) in news in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil that deal with verbal aggressions made by former president JB against the PFSP itself or the press in general, considering theoretical-methodological assumptions of Critical Discourse Studies and Communication Theory. The final corpus consists of ten articles divided into five factual news and five based on the editorials Poder and Ciência + Saúde between February 26, 2020, and February 26, 2021, collected using the Boolean terms "Bolsonaro AND press" and "Bolsonaro AND journalists". As a theoretical-methodological contribution, we used the concepts of Critical Discourse Studies and its Sociocognitive Approach by Van Dijk (VAN DIJK, 2020, 2018, 2017, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d, 2015, 2013, 2005, 2003, 1999), in addition to the epistemic bases of Communication (BUCCI, 2019, 2009, 2000; BARICHELLO, SCHEID, 2006; BARROS, 2008; DE LIMA, 2015; HALL, 1999; LAGE, 2006; MORAES 2016; RAMONET, 2019) and other areas of Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Linguistics and Political Science. The results indicate that the researched news articles resemble opinion article which employs specific linguistic-discursive structures of positive self-presentation of the PFSP and negative other-presentation of the former president. This strategy is seen as positive and necessary for the maintenance and defence of democracy in Brazil, in a scenario caused by the mismanagement of the Federal Government during the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil, resulting in more than 700 thousand deaths. In addition, it was crucial to guarantee the legitimacy of the press as an institution since former president JB's aggressive attitudes towards journalists and communication vehicles, in the analyzed period, sought to discredit the institutions of mass dissemination that did not accept to be consistent with the anti-democratic, anti-scientific, necrophiliac, creepy and inept speech of former president JB.