The criticism of PT and the left in the mainstream press: from "mensalão" to the end of the Bolsonaro government

• Grant number: 23/04650-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2023
• End date: April 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Severino Nobre
• Grantee: Gabriel Borges Farias
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 19/22387-0 - Crises of democracy: critical theory and the diagnosis of present time, AP.TEM

Abstract

The relationship between the mainstream press and the national left is a well addressed theme in scientific publications. This research intends to advance the debate on this topic by investigating the most recent journalistic production and highlighting new debates, while aiming to dialogue with previous works. We can organize the questions that guide this research in the following way: 1) From the context of continued support of liberal right governments pointed out by the bibliography, in what way did the mainstream press relate to the candidates of the New Right? 2) How does the criticism of PT (Workers' Party) and its representatives perpetuate in the most recent editorial production? and 3) In what quantity and in which agendas - economic, social and democratic - did the mainstream press align or oppose itself to the political agendas of PT and New Right candidates? The methodological approach is divided in two parts: first, we seek to conduct a systematic reading of the scientific production on the subject seeking to contextualize two main aspects: the historicity of the relationship between the Brazilian press and the political dispute and the meanings that are constructed in the journalistic discourse. In a second moment, we will perform a content analysis of the editorials produced by Folha de São Paulo and Estadão newspapers between 2017 and 2022. We have chosen to adopt slant analysis as a method, intending to produce a structured analysis of the content of the editorials that allows us to handle the size of the corpus. The initial proposal is to raise three agendas to be considered in the organization and collection of data: the economic policy agenda, the social policy agenda, and the democratic agenda - the last being linked to the way in which editorials categorize the candidates in promoting democratic values.