Mass media and communication about collective health and primary attention: analysis of the experience of producing the TV series \Unidade Básica\

Author(s)

Helena Lemos Petta

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Medicina (FM/SBD)
• Defense date: 2018-09-05

Examining board members

Jose Ricardo de Carvalho Mesquita Ayres; Gastão Wagner de Sousa Campos; Janine Miranda Cardoso; Ana Flavia Pires Lucas D Oliveira

• Advisor: Jose Ricardo de Carvalho Mesquita Ayres; Ricardo Rodrigues Teixeira

Abstract

Communication is a crucial challenge for a critical reconstruction of health practices, especially when the goal is to reach a broad audience through the mass media, guided by non-hegemonic values and unfamiliar concepts to common sense. This study aims to explore limits and potentialities in the dialogue between the field of \"Saúde Coletiva\" (Brazilian Public Health reform movement) and communication in the mass media, through the analysis of the making process of the TV series \"Unidade Básica\", which was exhibited in September 2016 by a cable TV broadcaster in Brazil. Qualitative, comprehensive-interpretive research was carried out, with the researcher being a participant observer. The study was based on dense description of the series elaboration process in its diverse stages: (development, pre-production, filming, editing of episodes and dissemination), statements from key informants (professionals involved in the production of the series) and repercussions from the media and social networks (in a non-systematic way). The empirical material was produced and interpreted considering reconstructive concepts from the Collective Health field. Among them: 1) rationalities involved in health practices (the biomedical discourse as contrasted to new ways of thinking about health care); 2) enriched understanding of the health-disease-care process, looking for characterizing the various vulnerabilities involved in these processes; and 3) Primary Health Care attributes taking \"integralidade\" (comprehensive care) as its guiding axis. As a result, we observed that the concepts above were potentialized in the process of creating the series. But the concept of \"integralidade\" has proved the most challenging to be communicated. Limiting factors to the dialogue between the \"Saúde Coletiva\" concepts and the process of creation were the rigid structures of the series artistic genre; different moral perspectives guiding performative action in television language; routines from the TV production, and commercial strategies of the television. On the other hand, certain aspects fostered a positive relationship such as, the critique of the hegemonic communicative formats and the need for use different rational-cognitive dimensions, as well as aesthetic-affective about the health-disease-care processes; the Brazilian political context in the period; the presence of a consistent set of knowledge and practices from the \"Saúde Coletiva\" field; beyond concrete experiences of primary health care implementation in Brazil. Finally, we pointed out that the constructing process of an aesthetic language that the series has achieved, through aesthetic-affective elements, provoke relevant effects to the objectives of the series by means other than the rational-cognitive ones, more commonly explored in the productions of health communication (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/24160-2 - Mass media and communication about public health and primary health care: analysis of an experience of production a television series called "Basic Unit"
• Grantee: Helena Lemos Petta
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate