A construção do comércio varejista no jornalismo econômico de Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, Gazeta Mercantil e Valor Econômico

Abstract

This inquiry aims to investigate the ways of construction of the retail commerce in the economical daily journalism. Retail trade is constantly covered by the media. Journalism in general approaches this sector from different points of view, whether under the topic of behavior, services or, mainly, economy. This coverage has been revealing the marked changes in the form retail firms and institutions position themselves how they have been treated and, finally and how they maintain their presence in the specialized media. Retail trade is responsible for 7,3% of the Brazilian GDP Gross Domestic Product PIB, in Portuguese (IBGE, 2002). We studied in this dissertation the discursive strategies of the construction of this sector in the economy section of the newspapers Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, Valor Econômico and Gazeta Mercantil. Our working hypothesis is that the discourse produced by these news vehicles with respect retail trade limits the approach to the sector and to its important role in the structure of the Brazilian economy. Four periods of analysis were defined on the basis of moments that marked the sector: 1990, the year the Consumer Defense Code was approved and the Plano Collor was introduced; 1994, the implementation of the Plano Real ; 1999, currency devaluation and capital concentration in the sector; and 2004, to allow a comparison with the discourse produced in a more recent period. The texts analyzed included stories published about the commerce or that took the sector as a source on the months of May, September and December of each year. Research methodology was based on content analysis using a discursive-semiotic approach. The defined categories were the relationship of the commercial and the industrial sectors (chapter 1), the importance of specialized macroeconomic analyses (chapter 2); the promotion of consumption (chapter 3); and the way in which commerce formulates attributes in relation to the objectives proposed in the texts (chapter 4). The study was based on a sample of 568 newspaper reports from a total of 1.034. Texts were selected on general, typical retail trade of foods, clothing footwear, decoration and electronic household products, whether dealing with sectorial, detailed aspects or from a macroeconomic perspective