Impactos do populismo no fazer jornalístico: desempenho profissional e rotinas produtivas da Folha de S. Paulo e de O Globo no governo Bolsonaro (2019-2022)

Abstract

The present doctoral thesis investigates whether and how the populist modus operandi of former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022) impacted the performance of professional roles and the productive routines of journalists at two Brazilian quality papers: Folha de S. Paulo and O Globo. The victory of the populist far-right in Brazil in 2018, represented by Bolsonaro, marked the success of a political communication strategy characterized, among other aspects, by the division of society into the binary "us versus them," disruptive rhetoric and behavior, digital expertise, the framing of part of the press as an enemy, and the use of denialism and disinformation as practices. Using a methodological strategy that combined content analysis of 830 journalistic pieces and in-depth interviews with eight reporters who covered Bolsonaro for these two newspapers, this study analyzed whether and how different dimensions of populism: RQ1) Prompted the fulfillment of the watchdog (Azevedo, 2006) and interventionist (Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2019) roles in the coverage; and RQ2) Required changes or adaptations in work routines at various stages of news production. The research is grounded in discussions on topics such as media and politics, journalistic productive routines, populism as a communicative phenomenon, and the rise of the far-right. The results of the first stage of the analysis (RQ1) indicate that, in both Folha de S. Paulo and O Globo, the performance of the watchdog and interventionist roles varied in intensity depending on the type of populist behavior covered, with "disinformation and denialism" being the populist dimension subjected to the greatest level of journalistic scrutiny and intervention. In the second stage of the empirical research (RQ2), it was revealed that Bolsonaro's populist modus operandi exacerbated difficulties and expanded the challenges of news coverage, including the loss of control over official information, dilemmas regarding the definition of news agendas, increased work-related stress levels, and the reevaluation of normative principles such as objectivity and impartiality, among other aspects.