TESI DOCTORAL UPF/ DOCTORAL TESI 2020 Mapping press’s political ideology Jucinara Schena A content analysis of editorial articles from the most read Brazilian online newspapers TESI DOCTORAL UPF/2020 newspapers the online from mostBrazilian read ofeditorialA content articles analysis politicalideology Mapping press’s Jucinara Schena Mapping press’s political ideology A content analysis of editorial articles from the most read Brazilian online newspapers Jucinara Schena DOCTORAL THESIS UPF / 2020 THESIS DIRECTOR Dra. Núria Almiron DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA ii memento mori ∞ iv We will need writers who can remember freedom. The realists of a larger reality. ― Ursula Le Guin to my mother Gessi Neusa Gnoatto Schena & in memory of my father, Jorge Schena. v vi Acknowledgements Writing the acknowledgements is the last part to be completed in this work, although it is the first to appear. The order is justified now after the research work is accomplished, and it comes the singular moment to look back at these years of the PhD program. With no spare, I must express my gratitude to the ones walking with me this tortuous, nonetheless valuable and fruitful route. Without them, absolutely none of this would have been possible. My mother may have no idea about the research as I wrote in all these pages, but she is present in every letter. She was prohibited from pursuing her studies when her dream was to be a teacher – she was able to go only until the 3rd year of primary school. And always said she would not make enough to leave me an inheritance, but she would make her best to help me to study whatever I decided for as long as I wanted. During the PhD, with 9,609 km in between, she thought I went a bit too far (literally!), especially considering the number of times cried on video calls saying I could not handle the task any longer – and I’ll translate to her this acknowledgement probably crying again, now tears that I did it. She was with me, holding tight these over four years without meeting each other in person (immigration bureaucracy: here I am. Still fighting it). When I was unsure about to enrol in a PhD program, Rodrigo de Oliveira Machado was by my side and encouraged me to breath and dive in. I am grateful for his undoubted support and his kind words for the time we shared. In a field where we can presence situations of injustice and pressure against researchers, I wish I could mention everyone who is my inspiration because they are part of the search for a more balanced research environment and with more acceptable mental health conditions. Most of them my classmates during the master program. I am fortunate to have them in my life and call them friends: Sara Paz Suárez (and Pablo Scotto!), Pablo Gómez- Domínguez, Lander Aspajo, Alicia Lin, Andrea Corral, Cristina Sánchez- Sánchez, Lucía García Carretero, Gemma Pala Navarro, Alexis Apablaza Campos, Jaqueline Herodek (and Guilherme Suedekum!). James Glass, special thanks for the attentive native speaker review and comments. From each one of you, in our particular relation, I learn a lot. From Brazil, I have special friends (Carlos A. M. Moreira, Camila Frare, Élin Godois, Mariane Teixeira, Ana Luiza Betto, Gabriela de Oliveira Machado, Eduardo Schneider, Bernardo Petry, Jenifer Almeida, Carol Mascia, Amanda Stróżak/Hanna Schwarz & Mariana Vieceli, Anelise De Carli, vii Cleandra Gregório, Pedro Fonseca & Paulo Cruz, Samuel Nervo, Barbara Greggianin, Larissa Furini, Nicole Morás, Carol Lopes, Letícia Heger, Dilu Seppi, Nanda Dreier, Marcelo Petter, Fábio Eroli, Ivânia Trento), my family and teachers I had during Journalism (Demétrio Soster, Laura Glüer, Luciana Kraemer, Léo Flores, Lisete Ghiggi, Maria Lucia Melão, Mariceia Benetti, Maristela Franco, Militão de Maya, Valéria Deluca) sending me their best wishes and demonstrating support to get this thesis done. By my side here in Barcelona amazing friends held my hand and opened their arms for me to rest along this process: Bruna de Oliveira Voltolini and Ana Humbert-Droz: you girls are the best; Sandra Parra, gracias por las dulces- fuertes palabras de siempre; Dominic Bahmani Fard, your words were crucial; Nagla Gaafar, Bianca Grisolia, Sina Kruska, Shqiponjë Ahmedi: flatmates to special friends, also feeding me, sharing drinks and making me laugh in good and bad days and nights; a super team of women friends I have around: Alice Hetzel, Eugenia Juárez, Ekaterina Erémina, Juliana & Taís Fornasier, Anna Goritskaya, Raffaella Sacco, Berta Molina Roger, Ana Metz, Marta Rodrigues, Raquel Marcato. Crossing paths with Egle Rubio was a miracle. Since then she shares all her joy and care, also shares her amazing Catalan family: Joan & Carme, to whom I am incredibly grateful. A life-changing moment happened when I met Gerard Pastor & Marta Urzaiz and Andy Sanz del Puerto. Thank you for taking care of me, helping me beyond measure and for bringing the confidence to ‘just keep swimming’. Special people from all over the world, the magic of my life: Katia Lampe & Tobias Mugge (Jake and Fiiiiiiitz), Harry Ehrlich, Lisa Tangerine, Melissa Noventa, Davy Bozonnet, Carolina Gomes, Raul Suhett, Laura & Matt, Trevor & Erin, Brandon T., Pedro A. González, Jose Monsalve. Thank you to Jonathan Andrew Harris for his kind support. Impossible not to think about long hours in the libraries, cafes and bars I’ve been sitting and trying to focus on this research. I am thankful for the unknown kind smiles and cheerful coffees I got from the hands of all these people I shared a glance. Here at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where I did my masters, and I am privileged to finish my PhD, I thank the staff support from the academic department. As a foreigner student, the attention and empathy I found at this Department of Communication were essential for the journey. Here I also had the opportunity to be part of the research project at USQUID Faculty of Communication led by Dr Carles Roca-Cuberes, with whom I gained an understanding of different research methods applied to investigate the aspects viii of the superior education system. In adittion, the contact with the teaching staff in the department was valuable and positive. I am especially grateful I followed this program oriented by Dra Núria Almiron. She guided me with patience, along with my tough years and processes. She shared with me much more than her determination and dedication to research in communication. She offered her time to listen to my doubts, showed me that objectives must be reached with a plan, with organisation, objectivity and persistency. And, maybe without knowing, she battled with me my most terrible fears – not all growths result in publishing pieces. Lastly, I would like to remember all the other immigrant students dedicating the energy of their lives in so many away-from-home countries, how close to a threat of terrorism the effort for education can represent and the various forms of institutional violence we have to handle in countries apparently inclusive, but where we mostly face traits of neocolonialist strategies. Obrigada Thank you Gràcies Gracias شكرا Grazie Dankeschön Merci Спасибо Faleminderit ix x Abstract Aware of the well-studied non-neutrality of media and the challenge that represents to have mechanisms to objectively identify the ideological bias, this thesis provides a methodological proposal to assess the political ideology of newspapers. The model’s originality lies on merging the contribution from political and communication sciences, as it is built considering the core values of political ideologies. The model is qualitatively inspired by the Critical Discourse Analysis perspective, and quantitatively by the traditional Content Analysis. It allows to compare samples according to an ideological framework and classify the outlets in four categories: elitism, egalitarianism, communitarianism and individualism. The model was applied to study the one-year time frame (2018) of editorial content (n=2,195) from the eight most read online newspapers in Brazil. The results show the feasibility of the model and draw a scenario dominated by a strong elitist discourse with only one off-key Brazilian newspaper leaning towards an egalitarian worldview. Key words: political ideologies, pluralism, content analysis, online newspapers, Brazil Resumo Consciente da já amplamente estudada não-neutralidade da mídia e do desafio que representa ter mecanismos para identificar objetivamente o viés ideológico, esta tese fornece uma proposta metodológica para avaliar a ideologia política dos jornais. A originalidade do modelo está na fusão das contribuições das ciências políticas e da comunicação, pois é construída considerando os valores das diferentes ideologias políticas. O modelo é qualitativamente inspirado na perspectiva da Análise Crítica do Discurso e quantitativamente na Análise de Conteúdo tradicional. Permite comparar amostras de acordo com uma estrutura ideológica e classificá-las em quatro categorias: elitismo, igualitarismo, comunitarismo e individualismo. O modelo foi aplicado para estudar o período de um ano (2018) do conteúdo editorial (n=2,195) dos oito jornais online mais lidos no Brasil. Os resultados mostram a viabilidade do modelo e traçam um cenário dominado por um forte discurso elitista, com apenas um jornal inclinando-se para uma visão de mundo igualitária. Palavras-chave: ideologias políticas, pluralismo, análise de conteúdo, jornais on-line, Brasil xi Resum Conscient de la no-neutralitat dels mitjans de comunicació i del repte que representen els mecanismes per identificar objectivament el biaix ideològic, aquesta tesi proporciona una proposta metodològica per valorar la ideologia política dels diaris. L’originalitat del model rau en fusionar la contribució de les ciències polítiques i de la comunicació, ja que es construeix tenint en compte els valors fonamentals de les ideologies polítiques. El model s’inspira qualitativament en la perspectiva de l’anàlisi crític del discurs i quantitativament en l’anàlisi de contingut tradicional.