Poder e desigualdade: a representação dos pescadores e pescadoras artesanais nas notícias do Jornal do Commercio.

Abstract

In this Critical Discourse Study (CDS), we analyze the representation of artisanal fishermen and women in the news coverage of Jornal do Commercio, between 2011 and 2018. Specifically, we investigate discourse structures and strategies, which involve personal and social cognition, prioritizing those that can reproduce a negative, stereotypical or biased representation of this traditional culture in the press and by doing so legitimatize their social inequality and exclusion. The multidisciplinary and political position of CDS allow us to show aspects of the social group in a historical, sociopolitical, cultural and economic dimensions. To understand the socio-communicative context and the impact of JC’s discourse, in the construction of the representation of fishermen and women, we use contributions from the Sociology of Communications (CANCLINI, 2002; CASTELLS, 1998, 1999; HALL et al., 1999; HALL, 2005; MARTIN-BARBERO, 2008; MORAES, 2013; RUIZ, 1994), Journalism (CORREIA, 2007, 2009; RICHARDSON, 2007; TUCHMANN, 1983; VAN DIJK, 1990, 1996, 1998, 2015a; ZAMORA, 2016), among others. Theoretical subsidies of CDA (FAIRCLOUGH, 2001, CHOULIARAKI; FAIRCLOUGH, 1999; MAGALHÃES et al., 2017; PEDRO, 1998; RESENDE, 2015, 2017), as well as theoretical and methodological tools of the socio-cognitive approach of CDS (VAN DIJK, 1990, 1996, 1998, 2007, 2012, 2015a, 2016a; COLORADO, 2014; FALCONE, 2008; VIZCARRONDO, 2006a, 2006b; ZAMORA, 2016), of Textual Linguistics (KOCH; ELIAS, 2006, 2009; MARCUSCHI, 1991, 2008, 2009) and Cognitive Linguistics (MARCUSCHI, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c; VEREZA, 2016) also contribute to our analysis. The results show that the press represents artisanal fishermen and women in themes and semantic roles that make them inferior and invisible, in addition to framing them in thematic frameworks/frames that stigmatize them as a “social problem”. This is realized through stereotyping them as either guilty, accomplices or victims of tragedy and violence, as well as a vulnerable group that needs our social assistance. Moreover, even when the group’s image is that of an environmental and sociocultural agent, the press mitigates their positive agency, representing them also as a transgressor agent. The journalistic discourse categorizes them in concepts associated with difference, deviation and even threat - an obstacle to capitalist progress, fostered by the State and other power elites. Such representations legitimatize old colonial prejudices, social inequality and other abusive practices against fishermen.