Dilma Rousseff's Third Round
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176 ORIGINAL ARTICLE | ARTIGO ORIGINAL Dilma Rousseff’s Third Round O terceiro turno de Dilma Rousseff João Feres Júnior1, Luna de Oliveira Sassara2 ABSTRACT In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the news media coverage of President Dilma Rousseff in the newspapers ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘O Globo’ and ‘O Estado de São Paulo’ became increasingly negative after her victory in the 2014 elections. We also compare her coverage with that of senator Aécio Neves, her main opponent in the last election, president of PSDB and leader of the opposition, who has been accused of corruption several times after the election. The test clearly shows that the Brazilian media is highly politicized. We conclude the article by discussing the importance of the media for the future of democracy in Brazil. KEYWORDS Democracy. Press. Brazil. Politics. RESUMO Neste artigo, testamos a hipótese de que a cobertura recebida pela presidente Dilma Rousseff nos jornais ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘O Globo’ e ‘O Estado de São Paulo’ tornou-se ainda mais negativa após sua vitória eleitoral em outubro de 2014. Também comparamos a cobertura de Dilma àquela dedicada a Aécio Neves, seu principal adversário e líder da oposição, alvo de inúmeras denúncias de corrupção no período pós-eleitoral. O teste não deixa dúvidas acerca do caráter altamente politizado da mídia brasileira. Concluímos refletindo sobre a importância da mídia para o futuro da democracia no Brasil. PALAVRAS-CHAVE Democracia. Imprensa. Brasil. Política. 1 Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Uerj), Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos (Iesp) – Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brasil. [email protected] 2 Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Unirio) – Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brasil. [email protected] SAÚDE Debate | RIO DE JANEIRO, V. 40, N. ESPECIAL, P. 176-185, DEZ 2016 DOI: 10.1590/0103-11042016S15 0709-en.indd 176 01/02/2017 13:05:35 Dilma Rousseff’s Third Round 177 Art. 77. The election of the President and manchetometro.com.br), which was aimed Vice-President of the Republic shall take at observing the daily press coverage of place simultaneously, on the first Sunday of the main candidates and parties involved October, in the first round, and on the last in Brazil’s presidential dispute by the main Sunday of October, in the second round, as Brazilian media, namely the newspapers the case may be, of the year preceding the ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘O Globo’ and ‘O Estado one in which the current presidential term de São Paulo’ (‘Estadão’), and the TV news of office ends. program called Jornal Nacional1. Constitution of the Federative Republic The majority of the studies on media and of Brazil, 1988 politics conducted in the Brazilian academy are concentrated in election periods. This is also true for the Manchetômetro in its initial stage, as it was created to reproduce ‘real- Introduction time’ analyses of the election coverage. In this paper, we tried to broaden the analysis Studies on media and on elections in Brazil scope for the period after the election, so have identified a repeated inclination of the as to reveal the media’s role in the political main communications network towards a crisis that has worsen after the re-election of negative media coverage of left-wing can- Dilma Rousseff, which we call here the ‘third didates in the Brazilian presidential elec- round’, and which has led to her losing the tions (ARRUDA, 1995; FIGUEIREDO, 1996; GONÇALVES, 1996; mandate. The hypothesis that we examine KUCINSKI, 1998; MIGUEL, 1999; AZEVEDO, 2000; COLLING, is that in the months following the election, 2000; MIGUEL, 2002). The news media frequently differently from what the literature predicts, tries to defend itself against accusations of the main Brazilian newspapers, in the wake political bias arguing that such behavior is of the political events led by the opposition, simply the result of surveillance of politi- conducted an extremely hostile campaign cal power in favor of the interests of society against the President Dilma Rousseff. – a role that must be played by the press The analyses of this paper were performed in modern democracies and that is called based on the database of the Manchetômetro, ‘watchdog’. In a previous work, we have from the beginning of 2014 until today2. Up to already shown that, unlike what is said, the August 27, 2016, the date chosen by us to con- great national media does not act as a watch- clude the database, there was a total of 35,049 1 The data on the coverage dog regarding the center or right-wing can- encoded articles published in the newspapers of Jornal Nacional will not didates (FERES JÚNIOR; SASSARA, 2016). ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘Estadão’, ‘O Globo’ and be shown in this paper, but they have already been Therefore, researchers of political com- ‘Estado de Minas’. In the case of the newspa- presented in previous munications have a very important role – to pers, we took into account what is published works (see FERES JÚNIOR; SASSARA, 2014, 2016; watch the supposed watchdog, that is, to in the covers and opinion pages. Regarding FERES JÚNIOR et al., critically observe the media’s work. Thus, TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional, we analyzed the 2016). The data are also available on our website. during the 2014 Brazilian election campaign, entire program. In the current work, we only the group from the Laboratory of Media took into account the texts published in the 2 In fact, the website also shows the data about Studies and Public Sphere (Laboratório de covers of the following newspapers: ‘Folha de the elections in 1998 and Estudos de Mídia e Esfera Pública – Lemep), São Paulo’, ‘Estadão’ and ‘O Globo’. 2010. We are currently increasing the size of located at the Institute of Social and Political In graph 1 below, we show the number of the database to also Studies (Instituto de Estudos Sociais e articles about President Dilma Rousseff pub- include the analysis of the mainstream newspapers Políticos) of the State University of Rio de lished in the media we searched throughout for the year of 2013, within Janeiro (Iesp-Uerj), launched the website the period of our database, separated by the scope of a project about the demonstrations Manchetômetro (Headline Checker) (http:// their valences. of 2013. SAÚDE Debate | RIO DE JANEIRO, V. 40, N. ESPECIAL, P. 176-185, DEZ 2016 0709-en.indd 177 01/02/2017 13:05:35 178 FERES JÚNIOR, J.; SASSARA, L. O. Graph 1. Dilma: valences (2014 – today) 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Ambivalent Against Favorable Neutral Source: Manchetômetro (Lemep). The interpretation of graph 1 above is not the media coverage of Dilma increased in simple and direct. Firstly, we found out that volume, but the neutral articles led in rela- it is a fact that the articles favorable to or tion to the negative ones until the end of the ambivalent about Dilma are rare in the press second round. In the month after the second coverage, so they are not even worth it to be round, on November 2014, the curves started analyzed compared with the number of ar- to take a divergent path, with the negative ticles that are against or that adopt a neutral articles increasing consistently, while the position. Taking a closer look at the neutral neutral ones showed a tendency towards a and negative articles, the most relevant decline. data to be noticed is the crossover point, in The fact that the neutral articles sur- October 2014, when the number of articles passed the negative ones during the elec- against Dilma was higher than the neutral tion period does not mean that the coverage ones. In fact, we would like to call attention of Dilma was balanced. As we have already to some other details that characterize the shown in the previous graph and in other press coverage before this turning point. It previously published texts, the media cov- is worth mentioning that the coverage tone erage of Dilma’s campaign was extremely during the entire period of Dilma’s campaign negative if compared with that of other can- is highly negative, i.e., during the less intense didates. It is important to highlight here the months, such as January and June 2014, fact that, since the final result of the 2014 the number of negative texts regarding the presidential election, in November, things President were similar to the neutral ones. have become extremely worse, i.e., the With the beginning of the legal campaign, press coverage became even more negative. SAÚDE Debate | RIO DE JANEIRO, V. 40, N. ESPECIAL, P. 176-185, DEZ 2016 0709-en.indd 178 01/02/2017 13:05:35 Dilma Rousseff’s Third Round 179 If before the campaign the proportion of frontier of April’s coverage, the most nega- negative and neutral articles was of approxi- tive of all the time series. mately one for one, during the campaign the The skeptical reader must be thinking: neutral articles surpassed the negative ones, but isn’t it natural that in periods of political and after Dilma’s victory, the negative ar- tension, such as the one in which Brazil has ticles reached a level three times higher than been through, the media coverage becomes the neutral articles, consistently remaining more negative? In fact, the answer should be like this until impeachment proceedings. We no. Each one of the facts mentioned above is have truly witnessed a media massacre. the result of a profound moral and practical What we are showing here using other disagreement. As an example, according to words is that there was no ‘honeymoon’ some analysts, the leakage of the intercept of with the major Brazilian press.