Newspaper as object of historical writing: methodological proposal applied to the analysis of the representations about “the political” in the “great carioca press” from 1955 to 1960

Abstract

This paper makes brief methodological considerations about the use of the press, especially the newspaper, as a source and/or object of historical studies. This proposal is justified when considering the lack of a systematization about the different types of precautions that must be taken when using the newspapers in different researches. Thus, the work is divided into four parts, we will start with a more descriptive approach, where some of the main methodological care, of a pre-textual nature, were synthesized. In a second moment, a more practical treatment is presented, where a methodology is presented that addresses the demands of the pre-textual level. Since this methodology was developed from a case study, more specifically, for research that aims to analyze the representations about the political, on the pages of newspapers Jornal do Brasil, Correio da Manhã, Última Hora and O Globo in the period from 1955 to 1960. Already in the third moment, some notes related
to the textual character of the use of the periodicals in historical writing were listed. Finally, the article ends  with an exposition of methodologies that account for the formation of a documentary corpus of analysis based on journalistic texts. Emphasizing that such methodologies have also been developed for the above case study.