doi.org/10.15198/seeci.2020.52.171-192
RESEARCH

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF NEWS HEADLINES ON LULA’S CORRUPTION CASE IN LEADING NEWSPAPERS IN BRAZIL
UN ANÁLISIS CRÍTICO DEL DISCURSO EN LOS TITULARES DE NOTICIAS SOBRE EL CASO DE CORRUPCIÓN DE LULA EN LOS PRINCIPALES PERIÓDICOS DE BRASIL
CASO DE CORRUPÇÃO DE LULA NOS PRINCIPAIS
JORNAIS NO BRASIL

Omid Alizadeh Afrouzi¹

¹University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

[1] Omid Alizadeh Afrouzi: University of St. Gallen.
omid.alizadehafrouzi@student.unisg.ch

ABSTRACT
This study investigates the way Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s corruption case is represented in the leading newspapers in Brazil. In line with theoretical perspective of Hector Borrat (1989; 2006) regarding the influence of newspapers in political systems, and by employing Fairclough’s (1995a) critical discourse analysis model and a number of analytical tools from Richardson (2007), the study examines the news headlines on the issue, published by two major Brazilian newspapers of national circulation, O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo, in order to determine the level of participation of each newspaper in the political conflict and how language is used to reflect specific ideologies. This step-by-step analysis of the case provides a critical review of the fundamental journalistic strategies. This research analyses the journalistic pieces of aforementioned newspapers over 29 months, from the beginning of the accusations against Lula (November 2015) until the definitive arrest of the Brazilian ex-president (April 2018), in interdisciplinary perspective of media and politics. The findings of the study indicate that both newspapers, with less proportion in Folha de S.Paulo, tend to present a negative image of the Brazilian ex-president when covering his conviction case by commenting on the conflict. The results provide evidence to support the idea that newspapers, considered as validators of information, do not simply reflect the social reality as it is, and yet they try to impose their ideologies in representing events.

KEYWORDS: Critical discourse analysis, political conflict, Lula’s corruption case, discursive strategies, O Globo, Folha de S.Paulo

RESUMEN
Este estudio investiga la forma en que el caso de corrupción de Luiz Inácio Lula da
perspectiva teórica de Héctor Borrat (1989; 2006) sobre la influencia de los periódicos en los sistemas políticos, y al emplear el modelo de análisis crítico del discurso de Fairclough (1995ª) y una serie de herramientas analíticas de Richardson (2007), el estudio examina las noticias, titulares sobre el tema, publicados por dos importantes periódicos brasileños de circulación nacional, O Globo y Folha de S.Paulo, para determinar el nivel de participación de cada periódico en el conflicto político y cómo se utiliza el lenguaje para reflejar ideologías específicas. Este análisis paso a paso del caso proporciona una revisión crítica de las estrategias periodísticas fundamentales. Esta investigación analiza las piezas periodísticas de los periódicos antes mencionados durante 29 meses, desde el comienzo de las acusaciones contra Lula (noviembre de 2015) hasta el arresto definitivo del ex presidente brasileño (abril de 2018), en una perspectiva interdisciplinaria de los medios y la política. Los resultados del estudio indican que ambos periódicos, con menos proporción en Folha de S.Paulo, tienden a presentar una imagen negativa del ex presidente brasileño cuando cubren su caso de condena al comentar sobre el conflicto. Los resultados proporcionan evidencia para respaldar la idea de que los periódicos, considerados como validadores de la información, no reflejan simplemente la realidad social tal como es y, sin embargo, intentan imponer sus ideologías en la representación de eventos.

PALABRAS CLAVE: análisis crítico del discurso, conflicto político, caso de corrupción de Lula, estrategias discursivas ,O Globo, Folha de S.Paulo

RESUMO
Este estudo investiga como o caso de corrupção de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva é representado nos principais jornais do Brasil. De acordo com a perspectiva teórica de Hector Borrat (1989; 2006) sobre a influência dos jornais nos sistemas políticos, e empregando o modelo de análise crítica do discurso de Fairclough (1995a) e várias ferramentas analíticas de Richardson (2007), o estudo examina as notícias manchetes sobre o assunto, publicadas por dois grandes jornais brasileiros de circulação nacional, O Globo e Folha de S.Paulo, para determinar o nível de participação de cada jornal no conflito político e como a linguagem é usada para refletir ideologias específicas. Essa análise passo a passo do caso fornece uma revisão crítica das estratégias jornalísticas fundamentais. Esta pesquisa analisa as peças jornalísticas dos jornais mencionados há 29 meses, desde o início das acusações contra Lula (novembro de 2015) até a prisão definitiva do ex-presidente brasileiro (abril de 2018), na perspectiva interdisciplinar de mídia e política. Os resultados do estudo indicam que os dois jornais, com menor proporção na Folha de S.Paulo, tendem a apresentar uma imagem negativa do ex-presidente brasileiro ao fazer a cobertura do caso de condenação fazendo comentários  do conflito. Os resultados fornecem evidências para apoiar a ideia de que os jornais, considerados como validadores de informações, não refletem simplesmente a realidade social como ela é, e ainda assim tentam impor suas ideologias na representação de eventos.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE: análise crítica do discurso, conflito político, caso de corrupção de Lula, estratégias discursivas, O Globo, Folha de S.Paulo

Correspondence:
Omid Alizadeh Afrouzi. University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
omid.alizadehafrouzi@student.unisg.ch

Received: 12/05/2019
Accepted: 18/11/2019
Published: 15/07/2020

Cómo citar el artículo:
Alizadeh Afrouzi, O. (2020). A critical discourse analysis of news headlines on Lula’s corruption case in leading newspapers in Brazil. [Un análisis crítico del discurso en los titulares de noticias sobre el caso de corrupción de Lula en los principales periódicos de Brasil]. Revista de Comunicación de la SEECI, (52), 171-192. doi: http://doi.org/10.15198/seeci.2020.52.171-192
Recovered from http://www.seeci.net/revista/index.php/seeci/article/view/593

1. INTRODUCTION

The research questions that this study aims to answer are:

1. Did O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo attempted to influence over Lula’s conviction case?
2. What was the journalistic role of O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo in representing the issue at hand?
3. What are the discursive strategies employed in the construction of the Lula’s corruption issue?
4. What are the linguistic features employed by news editors in the construction of the headlines?

[2] Popularly known as Lula.
[3] Partido dos Trabalhadores.

The theoretical perspective of Hector Borrat (1989; 2006) suggests that “if a political actor means any collective or individual actor capable of affecting the decision-making process in the political system, the independent newspaper must be considered as a true political actor”.
Furthermore, the newspapers do not seek any institutional power, but rather influencing the political system.

The newspaper focuses its actoins to affect the behavior of social or political actors in a sense favorable to its own interests: it influences the government, but also the political parties, interest groups, social movements and their audience. And at the same time that it exerts its influence, it is the object of the influence of others, and this could reach to a high level of decisive coercion when those ‘others’ are the holders of political power (Borrat, 1989).

To perceive the newspaper as an actor of the political system (Borrat, 1989) means considering it as a social actor placed in conflict relations with other actors and as a specialist in production of stories about the existing conflicts between actors and other political systems.
Based on the above, by consideraing O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo as two political actors, in this research we try to discover the role played by these two newspapers in the afromentioned conflict in the Brazilian political sphere.
Taking into account the different levels of press involvement in political conflicts, proposed by Hector Borrat (1998; 2006), we wonder the modes of the interference of O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo in Lula’s conviction case: a) as external observers and narrators of the conflict, not involved b) as principal participants or neutral intermediaries, linked with other actors and deepening the opposition between the antagonists or c) as collective actors that have internal conflicts.
In these three levels, the independent newspaper assumes different roles. At the first level which is called Extra level ⁴, the newspaper is an external narrator or commentator of conflicts between other actors and it is not involved as a main participant or as a third party who plays a neutral intermediary role. Quite the reverse, it is an actor of conflicts at the other two levels: at the Inter level ⁵ it is the main involved participant or assumes the role of neutral intermediary, and at the Intra level ⁶ it faces internal conflicts between some of its own components.
In the present study we also take advantage of the descriptive qualitative research method. By conducting a micro/macro analysis, we focus on linguistic devices and how they serve powerful social groups to fulfill their interests (Borrat, 1989). Applying this method will help us to have a qualitative-driven evaluation and interpretation of the possible results. We will explore the journalistic discourses from the perspective of newspaper production, as well as linguistic analysis based on the framework of CDA put forward by Fairclough (1995a) and Richardson (2007).
Regarding the journalistic discourse, the CDA emphasizes that there is a bilateral relationship among discursive structures and social structures that affect the production and comprehension of the newspapers texts (Fairclough, 2000). In other words, the CDA focuses on the role of discourse in producing and reproducing social reality. This approach constributes to understand the level of participation of the newspapers in political system.
Fairclough (1995a) believes that to understand thoroughly what discourse and its function is, the researcher must analyze first the text, and then the way this text is produced and consumed, and finally the relation of this to the wider society in which it takes place.
In line with Fairclough’s model, Richardson (2007) provides “a more accessible method of doing CDA than alternative theoretical approaches” and demonstrates concrete analysis of newspapers explaining the dialectical relationships among Fairclough’s factors.
Richardson’s framework is based on Fairclough’s diagram, but the former is more detailed than the latter in showing text production and text interpretation. Richardson proposes different analytical tools and discursive strategies which ease the analysis process of press texts.

[4] Translation of the spanish phrase Nivel Extra.
[5] Translation of the spanish phrase Nivel Ínter.
[6] Translation of the spanish phrase Nivel Intra.

3.2. Data analysis

The CDA draws on a wide variety of analytical tools for analyzing discourse. The employment of a full range of the relevant tools results in a broader picture of a situation. This study is a step-by-step use of analytical tools proposed by Richardson (2007). Since a number of these analytical tools (narrative, professional and organizational practices and press agency copy) were not relevant, or their employment was beyond the scope of this study, they were eliminated in the process of the analysis of the sampled headlines.

3.3. O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo

Despite the fact that the formation of oligopolies in the communication sector in Brazil is prohibited by the Constitution⁷, the lack of control to the cross-ownership of various media platforms paved the path for concentration of economic and political power in the Brazilian media sector (Robinson, Schulz, & Williams, 2017). Today, around 10 conglomerates dominate the Brazilian media market, impeding the diversification of news sources and limiting the freedom and diversity of information requered by democratic societies.
The Grupo Globo and Grupo Folha, respectively the owner conglomerates of O Globo and Folha de S.Pualo newspapers, are typically considered regional groups which are financed by endogenous capital (Aguiar, 2017). The Grupo Folha belongs to Frias family and the Grupo Globo, Latin America’s largest media conglomerate, belongs to the Marinho family and is owning around 340 of its own broadcasting companies and affiliates.
Bahia (2009) explaines that these conglomerates by creating their own news agencies operate as autonomus natoinal companies and provide news for internal and external customers. (…) Although legally autonomuos, news agencies arising from these communication groups depend on the copies made at the newsrooms of these newspapers in order to supply the market.
Similarly, Aguilar (2016) states that the Brazilian news agencies with national syndication have always been traditionally associated to press conglomerates and generally operate as commercial deparments for selling their daily content to smaller-sized clients in regional media outlets. These newspapers work as “brokers of news and pictures already produced by their staff (therefore not original) of the flagship papers of each company” (Agiuar, 2016).
Many authors (Shahin, Zheng, Sturm, & Fadnis, 2016) describe Folha de S.Paulo as progressive and O Globo as conservative newspapers. For more than 50 years, the Globo Group has consolidated its absolute influence as an institution capable of not only dictating the behavior and habits of Brazilians, but also the decisions of the heads of state and their government programs. The O Globo newspaper has always aimed at different strata of Brazilian society, especially the urban middle class.
Both during the military dictatorship, and later in the redemocratization, the O Globo newspaper’s editorial line used to set out what the rulers should or should not do according to their corporate interests and what the society should think about it.
More innovative than its rival in Rio de Janeiro, Folha de S.Paulo started to gain hold of the middle classes that were growing under the Brazilian ‘economic miracle’, and became the newspaper of choice for young people and women. It also targets rural landowners, and the civil society. At the same time, it puts effort into news areas that were not well covered in Brazil, like business news, sports, education and services.
Folha de S.Paulo has always supported the concept of a political opening and opened its pages to all opinion trends, and its news coverage adopted a more critical stance. It believes in nonpartisan and pluralistic news coverage which enables them to offer the widest range of views about any subject.

[7] Decree No. 236 of 1967.

4. WHY LULA WAS CONVICTED OF CORRUPTION?

The case against Lula da Silva is part of the Operation Car Wash⁸ corruption investigation in Brazil, which has jailed dozens of top executives and politicians. The Brazilian ex-president was condemned to serve a 12-year sentence in response to a corruption conviction.
Lula has been accused of influence peddling, where he supposedly lobbied for contracts between the government and foreign countries benefiting the giant conglomerate Odebrecht⁹, and reportedly received an apartment in exchange for these favors.
Although Lula’s involvement in a corruption scheme is by no means out of the question, the speed at which the process against him advanced was extraordinary. Several other politicians directly involved in the Car Wash scandal had received far less draconian treatment.
It is also necessary to note that the arrest warrant on Lula was celebrated by many major Brazilian newspapers. In the present study, we discuss the journalistic coverage of the event in the leading newspapers by circulation in this Latin-American country.

[8] Lava Jato.
[9] Odebrecht S.A. is a Brazilian conglomerate consisting of diversified businesses in the fields of engineering, construction, chemicals and petrochemicals.

5. RESULTS

After a step-by-step analysis of the news headlines published by O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo, it is concluded that regarding Lula’s corruption case, both newspapers, with less intensity in Folha de S.Paulo, imposed their specific ideologies in press texts and gave a biased reporting.
The analysis demonstrates also the participation of both newspapers as external narrators in the conflict in political system of Brazil. Effectively, they attempted to inform and comment negatively on actors and groups against their interests.
This positioning of O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo in the coverage of Lula’s conviction case not only testifies the attempt of journalistic influence on political conflicts, but also provides evidence to support the idea that newspapers, considered as validators of information, do not simply reflect the social reality as it is, and yet they try to impose their ideologies in representing events.
It was also revealed that the ideological views of the news producers were applied in the text, a result which confirms the existence of an ideological power relation in representing the issue at hand. To impose their ideologies, the news editors of both O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo applied some linguistic features and discursive strategies when covering the news about Lula’s conviction case.

6. DISCUSSION
 
Nowadays, all news stories should be questioned, and news evaluation should be now part of the knowledge of any citizens, beacause in any case, it will be necessary to observe the position of each newspaper in each conflict (Borrat & De Fontcuberta, 2006).
As a communicator of a polyphonic discourse on political, social, economic and cultural news aimed at a mass audience, Borrat (1989) argues that the newspaper is a narrator and, often, also a commentator of those newsworthy conflicts that it has decided to include and rank in its agendas.
The conceptualization of independent newspaper as a political actor proposed by Borrat (1989; 2006) is of high importance. Based on his perspective, the proclaimed independence of the newspapers is not what they are defined by, but “their exclusive dependence on the company of private sector that publishes them”. The other types of newspapers (governmental, partisan, union, ecclesiastical) establish their primary link with the government, party, union or church which generally finances them. The notion that the independent newspaper is apolitical is not true, on the contrary “it is a real political actor of a collective nature” whose permanent objective is not only to profit but also to influence government, political parties, social movements, etc.
For the inquiry we propose in our study, this notion is operative, depending on the positioning of the press, regarding the political parties or certain power groups. “Newspapers and journalists have always privileged the conflict as a value or factor of the news, as a determining category in the selection and classification of the considered cases and issues (...)”, but at the same time “the newspapers act in between of a network of internal and external conflicts that define themselves, according to the cases, as participating parties or involved third parties” (Borrat & De Fontcuberta, 2006). This is like being political actors with various modes of participation (specifically as external actors not involved in the conflict, as involved third parties, deepening the opposition between the antagonists of a political conflict, or as participants of a conflict initiated by them or others).
Such positioning may be more or less hidden in journalistic coverage, but in fact it always leaves traces of its production conditions. It is necessary to observe the journalistic stories according to their different production conditions, according to their possible readers and according to the inter-media interactions. Anyway, there is an omnipresent category: “newspapers of general information have always placed power conflicts in the highest features of their agendas”; the more intense and violent is the issue, the more stories are published, and always when the newspaper is a participant in the conflict, its “strategy mainly plans the versions, shapes them and controls them” (Borrat & De Fontcuberta, 2006).
During the news production process, the newspaper operates through a series of exclusion, inclusion and classification decisions about newsworthy events and conflicts (Borrat, 1989). To find out the level of participation and the role of the O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo in the afromentioned Brazilian political conflict, this study analyzes the news production process of the newspapers and their discoursive strategies by taking adavantage of the CDA model proposed by Fairclough and some analytical tools of Richardson.

6.1. Textual analysis

Fairclough (1995a) believes that there are two major aspects of texts to consider during analysis: “the first has to do with the structuring of propositions, the second with the combination and sequencing of propositions”. The first of these aspects concerns the representation of individuals and other social actors, and the analysis of clauses representing actions, processes and events. The second aspect concerns the organization of these single clauses into a coherently structured whole (Richardson, 2007).
The first stage of our journalistic analysis is textual analysis, which consists of lexical analysis, syntax and transitivity analysis, syntax modality analysis, presupposition analysis and rhetorical tropes analysis. In this study a total number of 170 front page headlines (99 headlines in O Globo and 71 headlines in Folha de S.Paulo) were analyzed. Table 1 demonstrates the details of the textual analysis of the headlines and the frequency of the linguistic features employed by both Brazilian newspapers regarding Lula’s conviction case. In the example headlines, the linguistic features are shown in bold letters.

Table 1. Textual analysis.

Source: elaboration of the author.

The analysis of particular words used in a newspaper text is always the first stage of any discourse analysis which is called lexical analysis and is consist of two steps; naming and reference analysis and predication analysis. Richardson (2007) believes that all types of words, but particularly nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, convey connoted as well as denoted meanings.
The way that people are named in news discourse can have significant impact on the way in which they are viewed. Reisigl and Wodak have called these naming options a text's ‘referential strategies’, and have illustrated that choosing to describe an individual or a group, as one thing or as another, “can serve many different psychological, social or political purposes […] on the side of the speakers or writers” (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001).
In the examples given for both newspapers in Naming & reference category in table 1, we observe that the individuals related to Lula are not referred by their own names. In the headline “Homem forte dos governos Lula e Dilma, Palocci¹⁴ é condenado”, published by O Globo, the editors have tried to bold Palocci’s link to Lula, rather that reporting his condemnation. Similarly, in the headline “Amigo de Lula é preso, acusado de fraude para financiar”, Folha de S.Paulo has decided to focus on the friendship between Lula and José Carlos Bumlai, rather than naming him directly in the headline.
 In this sense, Borrat (1989) states that the inclusion, exclusion or classification strategies during the news production are applied on “news facts and conflicts, the sources and the data, the actors, the facts, the ideas, the trends of newsworthy events, the themes already built or the texts already written”.
The choice of words in news texts is of high importance, since it represents more directly the values and characteristics of social actors. Reisigl and Wodak call these descriptions a text's “predicational strategies”, or “the very basic process and result of linguistically assigning qualities to persons, animals, objects, events, actions and social phenomena” (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001). It is through predicational strategies that persons are specified and characterized with respect to quality, quantity, space, time and etc. (Richardson, 2007).
As seen in table 1, in the headlines “Investigado, Lula terá de explicar triplex e sítio” and “Preso, Lula perde votos; sem ele, Marina sobe e alcança Bolsonaro”, published respectively by O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo, the editors, by using words like “investigado” and “Preso”, sought to convey to the readers the message that the Brazilian ex-president was under investigation and now is ‘jailed’. Previous studies (Guazina, Prior, & Araújo, 2018) have shown that one characteristic of the journalistic texts in O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo is the employment of adjectives that are not commendable to the actors of the conflict.
Transitivity refers to the relationships between participants and the roles they play in the processes. The use of the verbs in active or passive voice is of high importance in this strategy. Mills (1995) believes that “the study of transitivity is concerned with how actions are represented; what kind of actions appear in a text, who does them and to whom they are done”.
The examples of the category Syntax & transitivity in table 1 shows the headlines related to Lula, as the doer, and his actions, as the process. It can be observed in the examples whether the verbs were used in active or passive voices. Taking as an example the headline of O Globo “Na Zelotes, Lula é denunciado por corrupção”, we understand that in this passive sentence it’s not important who denounced Lula for corruption, and yet Lula’s implication in corruption has been highlighted. Likewise, in the headline “Acusado de corrupção, Lula será julgado por Sergio Moro”, published by Folha de S.Paulo, the same linguistic feature was employed.
Modality refers to judgments, comment and attitude in text and talk, and specifically the degree to which a speaker or writer is committed to the claim he or she is making. As Simpson puts it, “modality refers broadly to a speaker's attitude towards, or opinion about, the truth of a proposition expressed by a sentence. It also extends to their attitude towards the situation or event described by a sentence” (Simpson, 1993). Modality provides a further step in our analysis, showing that there are not only links between form and content, but also between content and function.
The most common modal verbs in Portuguese are the verbs: "poder" (to be able to), "dever" (to owe/ought) and "ter que" (to have to). The analysis of the headlines over the selected period shows that this is the least used strategy by both newspapers in total frequency. table 1 shows that O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo rarely used modal verbs to talk about Lula, but as seen in the relevant examples, by this lingiustic feature they attempted to blame Lula for corruption.
Presuppositions refer to the implicit and presupposed meanings and are marked in a variety of ways in press texts. There are four linguistic structures common to presupposed meaning (Richardson, 2007): 1. certain words (stop, begin, continue) and implicative verbs (manage, forget, dare, bother, condescend) 2. definite article ‘The..’ and possessive articles ‘his/her…’ (o, a, os, as & seu, dele / seu, dela, in Portuguese) 3. Wh Questions 4. nominal presupposition: Nouns and adjectives used to qualify or modify, like; new, old, beautiful, etc.
In the headline “Lula vira réu pela 3ª vez em denúncia de corrupção”, published by O Globo, the word pela 3ª vez conveys the message to the audience that Lula had been already in the court two more times. Similarly, in the headline “Nova investida da Lava Jato reaproxima Dilma de Lula”, published by Folha de S.Paulo, the word Nova implies to the existence of an earlier attack.
Journalism is best approached as an argumentative discourse genre (Richardson, 2007). Similarly, Kieran (1998) affirms that “a journalist's news report should aim to persuade the audience that his or her description and interpretation is the rational and appropriate one”. Journalists are unable to provide reports of events that are entirely true and objective, they employ rhetorical strategies aimed “at persuading others to adopt same point of view” (Thomson, 1996).
According to Richardson analytical tools, the rhetorical tropes consist of hyperbole, metaphor, metonym, neologism and puns. In this research, as demonstrated in the examples of Rhetorical tropes in table 1, hyperbole was the linguistic feature highly used against Lula by the editors of O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo.

[10] Brazilian Government Palace.
[11] Operation Car Wash (Portuguese: Operação Lava Jato) is an ongoing criminal investigation by the Federal Police of Brazil, Curitiba Branch.
[12] The name of an operation of Brazilian Federal Police.
[13] Supreme Federal Court.
[14] Antonio Palocci served as Finance Minister under Brazilian ex-president, Lula da Silva.

6.2. Discursive practices

At the second stage of the analysis, we need to consider the discursive practices of news discourse. Discursive practices amount to the processes involved in the production and consumption of texts. On this point, Fairclough (1995a) states that: “the discourse practice dimension of the communicative event involves various aspects of the processes of text production and text consumption. Some of these have a more institutional character, whereas others are discourse processes in a narrower sense.”
It is at this stage that analysis becomes discourse analysis rather than textual analysis. Phillips and Jørgensen (2002) explain that discursive practices focus on “how authors of texts draw on already existing discourses and genres to create a text and on how receivers of texts also apply available discourses and genres in the consumption and interpretation of the texts.”
At this stage we analyze the journalistic pieces based on the rules proposed by Richardson (2007): conceptualizing the audience and intertextuality.
The way the newspapers consider their audience highly affects their press texts and journalistic discourses. Richardson (2007) believes that there are two ways that the audience can be theorized: first the audience as consumer and second the audience as commodity.
The analysis of the headlines on the issue published by O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo over 29 months shows that the audiences were considered both as consumer and commodity. On the one hand, the news about Lula’s conviction case were like products that were appealing to the Brazilian readers, since it was about Brazil's first jailbird president. As Franklin (1997) states, in this case, the newspapers instead of providing a value-free reflection of the events, “focus on stories that are amusing, pleasurable and engaging to some identified consumers.”
On the other hand, O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo considered also their audiences as commodity, since on their daily front pages; they had always advertisements available for their audiences. Gandy (2000) believes that in this way, “the audiences are sold to the advertisers”. When journalism is viewed in such a way, the audience shift from being the consumers of a product, to being the product themselves (Richardson, 2007).
Intertextuality is one of the main pillars in Fairclough’s CDA model. Intertextuality suggests that texts cannot be viewed or studied in isolation since texts are not produced or consumed in isolation: all texts exist, and therefore must be understood, in relation to other texts (Richardson, 2007). Intertextuality is understood across two inter-related axes: external and internal intertextualities, whose results in this study are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Intertextuality.

Source: elaboration of the author.

In journalism, external intertextuality refers to the running story. Franklin et al. (2005) define a running story as news that generates “further developments or fresh revelations, media coverage over a period of days, months or even years”. The existence of a textual chain is revealed in the use of discourse markers such ‘another’, ‘further’, ‘additional’ and modifiers such as ‘new’.
Internal intertextuality refers to the reported speech which is a central building block in news reporting. Reported speech is an intertextual issue for analysts, because it is evidence of a journalist taking information, opinion and so on from a prior text and embedding it in another (Richardson, 2007).
As Fairclough (2003) states, the further away from direct quotation that reported speech moves, the greater the interpretative impact of the reporter is and, hence, the greater the potential for distortion or misrepresentation. This is where Borrat (1989) also points out that the newspapers are able to participate in political conflicts by inclusion, exclusion or classification strategies in news production.
According to Fairclough (2003), the prior text of a source's opinion can be incorporated into the present text in a variety of ways: first, reported speech may be included through direct quotation; second, reported speech may be included in news reporting through strategic quotation; third, reported speech can be included in news reporting via indirect quotation; fourth, reported speech can be included in news reporting via transformed indirect quotation; fifth, reported speech can be included through ostensible direct quotation.
The use of internal intertextuality by news editors of O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo, as shown in Table 2, has been more than the external intertextuality over the period. The headline “Lula vira réu pela 2ª vez e será julgado por Sergio Moro”, published by O Globo, is part of the running story about Lula’s court appearance. Similarly, in the headline “Nova investida da Lava Jato reaproxima Dilma de Lula”, published by Folha de S.Paulo, the word Nova implies to a running story about Lava Jato operation which had been previously covered by this newspaper. In terms of internal intertextuality, indirect quotation has been the strategy more frequently used in both newspapers. When reporting about Lula, instead of using direct quotation strategy in the examples “Casal acusa Dilma de crime e reforça que Lula era o chefe” and “Lula pediu destruição de provas, diz sócio da OAS”, both newspapers used indirect quotation.

7. CONCLUSION

This study was an attempt to carry out an analysis of the headlines of the Brazilian leading newspapers by circulation (O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo) in terms of representing the Lula’s corruption case. To this end, all the front page headlines of the aforementioned newspapers in relation to the subject were collected and later put into analysis. In this research, carried out by using Fairclough’s and Richardson’s CDA methods, newspapers were considered as social actors capable of participating in political conflicts (Borrat, 1989; 2006).
Effectively, several main conclusions can be taken from this study. The tendency of the editors of O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo to use different linguistic features and discursive strategies against Lula in the headlines regarding his corruption case and his eventual condemnation demonstrates that these Brazilian newspapers acted as external observers and narrators of this political conflict by informing and commenting negatively on actors and groups against their interests.
This positioning of O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo in the coverage of Lula’s conviction case not only confirms the hypothesis of the study regarding an attempt of journalistic influence on political conflicts, but also provides evidence to support the idea that newspapers, considered as validators of information, do not simply reflect the social reality as it is, and yet they try to impose their ideologies in representing events.
By applying a step-by-step analysis, it was revealed that the ideological views of the news producers were applied in the text and, therefore, the second part of our assumption regarding an ideological power relation in representing the issue at hand is verified.
In textual analysis, we found out that the news editors of both O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo were more likely to choose specific vocabularies to express their ideological views. To express their beliefs in the headlines, they used specific words for naming or referring to Lula and the issues related to him. It was also revealed that both newspapers tried to bold Lula’s name in the headlines, even if the news story was not related to him directly. Furthermore, they showed a high tendency to use passive voice when Lula was the object of the sentence. By using modality and presuppositions they tried to blame Lula for corruption. Moreover, the rhetorical trope which was highly employed by both newspapers was hyperbole, merely to stress Lula’s corruption case in the country.
In discursive analysis, we found out that the economic aspect matter to both newspapers, since they consider their audience as both commodity and product. With less intensity in Folha de S.Paulo, both newspapers gave a biased reporting on the issues related to the convicted Brazilian president. Likewise, in terms of intertextuality both newspapers intended to show Lula as a corrupt by using direct and indirect quotations. The use of internal intertextuality was more than the external intertextuality and the indirect quotation was the strategy more frequently used in news headlines.
To sum up, it is worth highlighting that in the news production process which comprises inclusion, exclusion and classification decisions (Borrat, 1989), it is possible to trace the particular interests and ideologies of the independent newspapers and their role as political actors. It is always necessary to study specific cases that analyze the power relations established between the different participants of the political system, the public and non-public functions of the media and the resources and strategies implemented according to each particular conflict.

AUTHOR

Omid Alizadeh Afrouzi
He’s PhD student of Latin American Studies at St. Gallen University. He is the researcher of the Faculty of World Studies at University of Tehran, Iran. He has been working as a reporter, news editor and producer in the international news channel HispanTV. He also works as a columnist for Alwaght news and analysis website.
omid.alizadehafrouzi@student.unisg.ch
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2073-1308