A candidatura Lula em 2018 nas páginas da Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo e O Estado de S. Paulo: agenda e enquadramento

Abstract

In the midst of a serious political crisis, Brazil went through presidential elections in 2018. During the pre-campaign and part of the electoral race, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) led the vote intentions, but had his candidacy prevented by the Electoral Justice, after having been sentenced in the second instance. It is known that the mass media have become a fundamental element in the political life of any democratic country and that printed newspapers are relevant in this context, due to their ability to guide the agendas of other media. In this sense, the present research investigates how the three main printed newspapers nationwide - Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo and O Estado de S. Paulo - reported and noticed Lula's candidacy attempt in 2018. For that, they were analyzed the main and editorial headlines of the vehicles from June 8 to September 12, 2018. The main methods used were the Valencia Analysis Methodology and the Framework Analysis. Three main issues were investigated: (1) the frequency devoted to Lula's electoral project by the vehicles; (2) the valuation of headlines and editorials about him; and (3) the framework given to the ex-president in the editorials. In the meantime, we tried to answer the following questions: how was Lula's candidacy portrayed by the researched newspapers? And what were the central ideas that organized the opinionated content of newspapers about Lula? It was argued that, through the selection and emphasis of certain aspects of the perceived reality, and the deliberate choice of frameworks, the three main newspapers in the country maintained a historic position of opposition to Lula and the PT, with mostly news and opinion content negative in relation to the object. The data found demonstrate that the three vehicles had largely negative coverage against Lula, both in the headlines and in the editorials, and the predominant framing in the editorials characterized Lula as an “authoritarian” politician when trying to run for office being in a condition of ineligibility.