8-year-old boy protesting? Analysis of comments on militant children in UOL news reports

• Grant number: 21/08256-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2021
• End date: September 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications - Theory of Communication
• Principal Investigator: Juliana Doretto
• Grantee: Winycius Morais dos Santos
• Host Institution: Centro de Linguagem e Comunicação. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas (PUC-CAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to investigate how part of the readership of the news website UOL sees the political actions of children who seek to publicly their position and defend causes. We focus on two specific episodes covered by the portal: the attempt to censor the Rio de Janeiro Book Biennial, in 2019, by the then-mayor of the city, Marcelo Crivella, who led an 8-year-old child to express his rejection of intolerance and homophobia, expressed by the politician; the death threat to an 11-year-old Colombian child in January 2021 for asking for better internet access for distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. Having as theoretical basis studies on the media representation of children, which usually push away young people from political decisions, the research turns to the analysis of public comments generated by the selected reports, following the perspective of reception studies. The method used to analyze the messages is content analysis, according to Bardin (2002). As one of the results of the research, we expect to formulate guidelines for journalists to give more emphasis to the political manifestations of children and adolescents, breaking through certain stereotypes of the juvenile condition. This material will be part of a manual, which has been developed by the advisor. (AU)