Bruxel, Laerson
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Credit Name
Bruxel, Laerson
Name
Bruxel, Laerson
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Publications
(All)
Subject
- 1 Argumentação
- 1 Democracia deliberativa
- 1 Referendo
- 1 This study analyzes and compares the material published by two newspapers – Folha de São Paulo, from Brazil, and Público, from Portugal, on the referendums that happened in both countries in 2005 and 2007 respectively. The purpose is verifying whether in this material there are discourses with arguments that might be considered useful to a deliberative process, in the perspective of democracy as it is defended by Jürgen Habermas. According to Simone Chambers, newspaper material is classified as either plebiscitary rhetoric or deliberative rhetoric. The former is characterized by the presence of more elements that do not contribute for the attainment of a public deliberation, whereas the latter contains significant presence of elements considered important for the development of this process. The reinforcement of some of its elements in the newspaper materials – this investigation assesses and quantifies which elements are privileged by the media – may bring it closer or apart of what is considered important for a public debate in a habermasian perspective. The decision on privileging one or another element is a choice that the media makes. Upon choosing, it leaves the border area, with many open possibilities, and starts a demarcation process. When it demarcates, it sets limits for either process. Taking into consideration that the media has ambivalent potentials, this investigation makes this assumption: it is not possible to define the role that the media plays in specific events of public deliberations, such as referendums, because in its material all the rhetoric elements are present, both those favoring and impairing the deliberative process. Nevertheless, given its production and publicizing reasoning, it reveals some of the limits that prevent it from complexifying the public agenda themes. The assumption made here is that its choices privilege the rhetoric elements that are in consonance with the logic of evidence, which is refractory to an argumentative process. It is temerarious to consider the media as a central forum for public deliberation because it privileges more elements that limit an argumentative process. If its power of scope may be taken as something potentially useful for carrying out deliberative processes in contemporary democracies, the mere availability of this apparatus does not allow us to jump to conclusions that its practice effectively contributes for the development of public debate. For its potential, and also for allowing that inside it also circulates material identified with a deliberative rhetoric, one could even see the media as a player able to play a complementary role, but not a central one, in the broader process of public deliberation. Under this light, one cannot dismiss completely the possibility that the material produced by the media triggers a deliberative process in society when it is appropriated of or reinterpreted in several ways by the various players of the public scope.
Date issued
- 1 2011
Type
Fulltext
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Issue Date | Title | Author(s) | Type | Access | |
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1 | 2011 | Democracia, Deliberação e Mídia na Esfera Pública Contemporânea: um Estudo sobre Experiênciasa Referendárias no Brasil e em Portugal | Bruxel, Laerson | doctoralThesis | closedAccess |