The Jornal Nacional and the environmental crisis: a critical discourse analysis of news about climate change

Author(s)

Ana Paula Zaguetto Alves

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Piracicaba.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALA/BC)
• Defense date: 2011-07-27

Examining board members

Adalmir Leonidio; Leonel Azevedo de Aguiar; Paulo Eduardo Moruzzi Marques

• Advisor: Adalmir Leonidio

Abstract

Climate change is at present one of the environmental issues that receive more attention in scientific, economic and political debate. Studies about this phenomenon suggest that human action is interfering with the climate by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide. The reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, are the main reference for the understanding of climate change, its possible consequences and options for adaptation and mitigation. However, the solutions suggested by these reports - the development of technology and market mechanisms - refer to the same factors that cause the environmental crisis, continuing the same economic development model. The incorporation of environmental issues to politics and to the economy resulted in the elimination of the existing contradictions between capitalism and environmental balance. According to the Social Theory of Discourse, discourse is present in all dimensions of social life, contributing to the formation of social identities, social relations and systems of knowledge and beliefs; it is a practice of world mening and world representation. The discourse has different guidelines. One of them is the ideological orientation: the discourse as a means of reproducing and naturalizing ideologies. Ideologies are constructions and representations of the world which contribute to the reproduction and transformation of relations of domination. The sustainable development discourse serves to legitimize the economic development before the environmental crisis, by saying it can internalize the conditions of ecological and social sustainability. The main forum for legitimizing environmental problems are the means of mass communication, which - being part and parcel of the development of capitalist societies, and therefore identified with their values - reproduce the discourse of sustainable development. The discourse of news about climate change legitimize the measures identified by the IPCC as the solution to the problem. The news also build a discourse centered on fear, based on the threat of natural disasters, raising society concern about the problem. But at the same time the solution is presented: more technology and more market mechanisms to legitimize the continuation of the same model of development that cause the environmental crisis. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/04528-4 - The Jornal Nacional and the environmental crisis: a critical discourse analysis of news about climate change
• Grantee: Ana Paula Zaguetto Alves
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master