The contemporary debate about regional integration: the Mercosul and the Pacific Alliance according to the Brazilian press

• Grant number: 16/03174-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Effective date (Start): June 01, 2016
• Effective date (End): February 28, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Janina Onuki
• Grantee: Leandro Almeida Lima
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/04495-4 - Brazil, the Americas and the world: public opinion and foreign policy in 2013, AP.TEM

Abstract

This research aims to analyze Brazilian media's interpretations about the regional integration in Latin America, particularly the Mercosul and the Pacific Alliance. The Mercosul is the most important Brazilian initiative on economic regional integration and has been often criticized by sectors of the society, which brings the need to know the debate about its performance and its validity as part of the strategy of regional insertion through integration. The fundamental premise is that the media is a political actor that actively interprets the reality, reports facts according to its own preferences and assessments, besides influencing the public debate. The research is going to be based in theoretical perspectives that discuss the media's proactivity in politics, particularly the framing. Its conceptualization and usage have been improved in the last three decades and have reached several areas of the social and human sciences. The American researcher Robert Entman summarized the concept by stating that framing means the selection and highlights of certain aspects of the reality, which creates particular definitions, interpretations, assessments and recommendations about issues.The research project proposes as hypothesis that the press actively participates of the debate about regional integration by presenting its own positions disapproving Mercosul as an effective promoter of the member countries' development and integration. Despite the criticism, the research project also proposes that the press is not necessarily against integration. The research is going to begin by analyzing the current scenario of the Latin American integration and the role of the media as political actors in our contemporary societies. Following this, the core of the research is going to be developed by the analysis of the existing framings of main national newspapers about the Mercosul and the Pacific Alliance. There is going to be analyses of the online platforms of the daily newspapers Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, O Globo and Valor Econômico. Methodologically, signed articles and editorials published between January 2014 and December 2015 are going to be revisited through techniques of quantitative and qualitative content analyses. For the quantitative analyses, it is going to be used the software Wordstat, which is available in the laboratories of the Institute of International Relations of the University of São Paulo (IRI-USP). It keeps close collaboration with the Department of Political Science and offers research conditions for graduates. The access and implementation of the proposed analysis is going to have the support of the Center of Studies of International Negotiations (Caeni-USP) researches.This research is part of the thematic project "Brazil, the Americas and the World: public opinion and foreign policy" (FAPESP 2013/04495-4) coordinated by the IRI-USP/Cebrap and is going to benefit from the press materials collected by the Observatory of Foreign Policy in the Press.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

LIMA, Leandro Almeida. Impasses of MERCOSUR in the press: editorial discourses and the Brazilian foreign policy for Venezuela in the bloc. 2018. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.