Da manchete à matéria: a produção de efeitos de sentido sobre Lula no segundo turno das eleições de 2022

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the discursive functioning of meanings produced about Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the O Globo newspaper during its coverage of the second round of the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections, between October 3 and 29. Grounded in French Discourse Analysis, particularly in the works of Pêcheux, Orlandi, and Mariani, the study investigates how journalistic discourse contributes to the constitution of subject-positions and to the production of truth effects regarding the political actors in dispute. The corpus comprises seven editions of the newspaper, from which front-page headlines and their complementary elements—subheadings, excerpts from the first page, and passages from internal articles—were selected as signifying materialities that orient interpretive gestures and sustain the stabilization of meanings about Lula and, by extension, his opponent, Bolsonaro. The analysis considers the functioning of discursive memory, imaginary formations, and strategies of silencing and selection that regulate the organization and circulation of certain utterances. The aim is to understand how the newspaper updates historically constituted meanings and contributes to the signification of political subjects. Furthermore, the dissertation discusses the ideological functioning of journalistic discourse as an enunciative practice that presents itself as neutral, objective, and informative, yet actively participates in the political dispute.