The human rights discourse in mainstream Brazilian media: a semiotic analysis of Veja and CartaCapital

Abstract

Redemocratization in Brazil, whose fundamental milestone is found in the 1988 Constitution, was not able to build a widespread positive perception regarding Human Rights. Therefore, clichés such as "Human rights for the right humans" and "A nice criminal is a dead criminal" were daily propagated not only on the streets, but also on TV programs and newspaper reports. Discourse semiotics has ample theoretical and methodological tools through which the enunciative strategies of the passionate discourse of the mainstream press can be described and understood. In this respect, the journalistic pieces of the magazines CartaCapital and Veja of cases of widespread notoriety and commotion were analyzed: the 'Case João Hélio', from 2007, in Rio de Janeiro, in which a 6-year-old boy died dragged, tied to a stolen car in motion; and the case of a black and poor boy, accused of thefts in a rich neighborhood of Rio, tortured by middle-class vigilantes, in 2014. The work was able to verify, despite the different ideological orientations, the similarity in the enunciative strategy of the publications.