Women, journalism, and politics

A sociodiscursive study

Abstract

This work reflects on mediatic representation of women present in Brazilian politics, from a discursive dialogical analysis of cover stories carried out by public figures of national politics between 2015 and 2019. A parallel is made between the portrait of women in political protagonism, elected government officials, and the representation of those who occupy supporting roles regarding political performance, such as first ladies. Once contemporary syncretic texts are studied, the Bakhtin Circle dialogism (VOLÓCHINOV, 2017) appears linked to the visual-verb studies (BRAIT, 2013). The hypothesis pointed out is that, as protagonists of political practice, women are often vilified by media and, under assessments of hysterics or incompetence, the model attributed to them is of a bad witch (DWORKIN, 1974). On the other hand, when they play a supporting actor’s role, the media portrait values according to the current aesthetic standard and seems to build a narrative close to those of fairy tale princesses. Considering that every statement is part of an uninterrupted discursive current and that is necessarily limited to an ideological system (BAKHTIN, 2003), it is proposed to study the dialogical relations which constitute the investigated covers, reflecting on the stratified social roles of women, reflected, and reiterated by doing media.