How Globo media manipulated the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff

Abstract

The impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 was the result of a coup of the economically dominant conservative oligarchy against the leftist Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, the Worker’s Party), in power since 2003. The right wing Brazilian media played a crucial role in this coup by manipulating public opinion as well as the politicians who voted against Dilma. In particular, the media of the powerful Globo Corporation, such as O Globo newspaper, and especially Globo’s Jornal Nacional, the pervasive TV news program, systematically demonized and delegitimized Dilma, as well as ex-President Lula and the PT, in their news reports and editorials by selectively associating them with pervasive corruption and attributing the serious economic recession to them. After a summary of this sociopolitical context, and a brief theoretical definition of manipulation, this article examines some of the manipulative strategies of O Globo’s editorials during March and April 2016.

Netflix and Over the Top Politics? The Mechanism TV series and the dynamics of entertainment intervention

“…It also occurred before the book on the Lava Jato operation that allegedly inspired the series was published (Grillo, 2016; Redação, 2016). While the formal charges against Dilma Rousseff were related to a minor irregularity in the management of the budget (known as pedalada fiscal ), several scholars saw the impeachment process as a soft coup orchestrated by right-wing political parties with the cooperation of the conservative media (de Albuquerque, 2019; van Dijk, 2017). Ever since the production was announced in the press, Jose Padilha, the series’ creator and producer defended the veracity of the show’s arguments and disputed publicly with former Brazilian presidents, Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, who accused the series of manipulating public opinion to damage PT’s electoral chances (Pennafort and Batista, 2018).…”

QUALITY ISSUES IN NEWS COVERAGE OF DILMA ROUSSEFF’S IMPEACHMENT: an analysis of six Brazilian newspapers

“…Several analysts have already stated that it was the impeachment that disrupted the political order when it constituted itself as a parliamentary coup supported by the main Brazilian media organizations (Santos & Guarnieri, 2016;Albuquerque, 2017;Van Dijk, 2017;Santos, 2017). Four years later, the alliance between old do processo de impeachment de Dilma Rousseff em 2016.…”

Rede na manipulação da democracia no Brasil

“…Beneficiam-se dela o governo, as corporações internacionais, o capital financeiro, todos aqueles que sustentam sua emissão por patrocínios e interesses compartilhados. Trata-se da construção planejada de uma narrativa fantasiosa com aparência de realidade, para criar a sensação de participação consciente e cidadã (SALMON, 1999;BENTES, 2018;VAN DIJK, 2017). Ela representa poderoso processo de comunicação e atração de agentes para a manipulação da democracia, uma verdadeira máquina publicitária que leva adiante a tarefa de constituir a legitimidade da política junto à sociedade.…”