Press origins in Brazil: prosopographical study of editors between 1808 and 1831

• Grant number: 16/12566-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: September 01, 2016
• End date: August 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: João Paulo Garrido Pimenta
• Grantee: Luis Otávio Silva Pincigher Pacheco Vieira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to develop a prosopography - a collective biography - of press editors in Brazil in activity during the process of Independence (1808 -1831). We chose a sample of 28 characters, looking through it all Luso-American provinces where periodics were produced. Within this sample, we try to balance the chosen number of individuals of each province in proportion to the number of papers that have arisen in them. The objective of this work is the partial unification of this multitude of different paths within a framework in order to make observable a picture and a profile of a large collective actor formed by the editors, without, of course, forget to consider the specificities of the actions of each one. This scenario will allow analysis not only of the trajectories and individual performances of some of them, but also the ways of each depends on the others, revealing strategies and shared actions, and the insertion of this collective actor in the independence process. This organic look also tends to reveal the initial contours of public opinion concept development in Brazil, avoiding reifications or use pre-designed templates that concept, at the risk of deformation of the research object.