Abstract

ROMAO, Davi Mamblona Marques  and  OSMO, Alan. Danger Lives Next Door: Police Television Journalism and Paranoia. Rev. Subj. [online]. 2021, vol.21, n.3, pp. 1-12. ISSN 2359-0769.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5020/23590777.rs.v21i3.e11317.

This article aims to analyze how violence is presented on television in police journalism programs and to debate the possible effects of the programs on their viewers. The material for analysis of some editions of programs of the genre was Brasil Urgente (TV Bandeirantes São Paulo), Cidade Alerta, and Balanço Geral (both from TV Record São Paulo). A random sample of seven editions was recorded, transcribed, and submitted to qualitative discourse analysis. A framework derived from the Critical Theory of Society was used as a theoretical foundation for the interpretation of the programs. Based on the analysis, we conclude that the structure of police journalism seems to have two major effects on its audience: 1) it places its viewers in a conformist position, through which the social system is protected and reinforced, and 2) the programs feed a paranoid form of relationship with social reality, based on the construction of a worldview based on fear. Finally, the study indicates that programs of this kind can fuel a process of social exclusion, by consolidating stigmas and prejudices, in addition to reinforcing demands for an authoritarian and violent State.

Keywords : police journalism; violence; television; paranoia; critical theory of society.

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