Jornalismo político e imagem pública: Dilma Rousseff nos editoriais do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo

Abstract

This work intends to investigate, through the study of editorials published on the printed version of O Estado de S. Paulo, the way that Dilma Rousseff's public image is built by the newspaper. The sample is formed by 24 texts of different months and weeks of 2012. It is known that the public images of representatives constitutes one of the factors to influence citizen's political preferences. In this context, Journalism (even when it adopts the discourse of objectivity) disposes of special configurations related to the building of political actors' public images. With the analysis of the editorials, three main subject categories were found: Economics; Politics; and Social Issues. From the establishment of these categories, it has been identified the framings adopted by the periodical to personalize the president. In the Economics category, the president's competence to deal with the international economic crisis is questioned. Referring to Politics, editorials criticize negotiations with allies in Congress. In the Social Issues category, the newspaper questions the president's efficiency related to works of large social impact. A permanent tension is perceived in the process of framing, while the discourse of objectivity is put on doubt by the biases clearly exposed in the editorials.