Entre mitos, silenciamentos e circularidades: a cobertura televisiva do câncer e suas formas de percepção

Abstract

Analysis of journalistic production and the relationships health and communication, in the context of Brazilian television, in cancer approach by news of public and commercial broadcasters. The empirical research has as parameters the theoretical foundations of journalism and television journalism nowadays, health communication and social relations mediated by Brazilian television, which intends to be an actual public space. Health communication is analyzed here in an ideological perspective, as a potential strategy for the promotion and education for life’s quality and development. The study includes news transmitted in one of the most consolidated television products of Rede Globo – the Jornal Nacional, through the content analysis, with qualitative and quantitative criteria. In a second perspective, we adopt a benchmarking procedure with another product journalistic offered by a public TV – where you expect a greater social commitment, with impartiality and independence, seeking dominance of the public interest. It was selected the Repórter Brasil Noite, the most representative television news from TV Brasil (because it is the most long-lived TV newscast from TV Brasil, broadcast daily in prime time and with greater reach), which is the main public broadcaster of the country's current broadcasting system. This project analyzes critically the construction of elements of journalistic narrative and its structural strategies, establishing an overview of the interdisciplinary dialogue between communication and health. In addition to these news programs, others were analyzed, engaged in some measure, a specialized health approach: Bem-estar (Globo) and Ser Saudável (TV Brasil). The discussion took into account the disagrees and tensions commons in this approach, especially from the mobilized knowledge and the speeches of the social actors involved, given the symbolic relations that permeate the television journalism. Taking the relevance of this theme into account, the aim was to map the meanings that emerge from this treatment, besides the reception of such content by the public involved. Neoplasms are often represented in the media as symbols of pain, suffering and mutilation, and remains a matter of taboos, prejudices and unknowns in society. The study aims therefore necessary to examine the role of television journalism in the (de)construction of the stigma surrounding the disease, seeking to hear the impressions of patients, doctors and other professionals. For the latter, but not least important purpose, this project involved data collection realized in an oncology institution, located in Juiz de Fora, which includes a specialized hospital.