From “Leftist” To “President”: Journalism and Editorial Coverage of Brazil’s Lula in Five Elections

ABSTRACT

The article analyzes the image that O Estado de S. Paulo (one of the main Brazilian newspapers) constructed of the presidential candidate Lula da Silva over the course of five electoral campaigns: 1989, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006. Our hypothesis is that OESP editorials have an adversarial positioning towards Lula da Silva in all presidential races, despite slight variations brought on by the newspaper's perception of his chances of victory. The study uses a quanti-qualitative methodology supported by Iramuteq (lexicometric analysis) to examine 181 OESP editorials. We found out that OESP features Lula in different ways, adapting its position-taking over time: the characterization of the candidate ranges from “the leftist” (1989 elections) to “the president in permanent campaign” (2006 elections). Notwithstanding, OESP editorials are repeatedly willing to consider him as unsuitable for office. The longitudinal study highlights OESP's political positioning and allows us to discuss journalism and political interests in the Brazilian case.

KEYWORDS:

• Editorial journalism
• elections
• Lula da Silva
• political journalism
• public image
• public opinion

Acknowlegements

The authors are grateful to Giulia Fontes, Camila Mont’Alverne and Lucy Maia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Mariane Nava http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7167-3876

Francisco Paulo Jamil Marques http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5256-1964

Notes

1 The editorials considered in this study are available on https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HYjKKePQKM2ypdapCslJgXDiXFajsanr. Access on October, 05, 2018.

2 Survey available on: http://media.folha.uol.com.br/datafolha/2013/05/02/intvoto_pres_01101994.pdf Access on July, 17, 2018.

3 The “Mensalão” scandal started in 2005, when Lula da Silva's administration was accused of buying political support from congressmen. More details are available on: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19081519 Access on October, 04, 2018.

4 Media Ownership Monitor Brazil (MOM): “Who Controls the Media?” https://brazil.mom-rsf.org/en/ Access on October, 05, 2018.

5 The percentages were estimated based on 4 daily editorials (OESP editions from 1989 and 1994) and 3 daily editorials (editions from 1998 to 2006) during the 90-day period. In total, there were 1,530 editorials published over the time frame set out in the corpus.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Brazilian National Scientific Council (CNPq) and Capes Foundation (Ministry of Education).