A midiatização do social: Globo e Criança Esperança tematizando a realidade brasileira

Abstract

The present research, based on the systemic theory, analyzes television interventions in the social field, in particular those presented through the Criança Esperança, Rede Globo de Televisão´s main institutional representation. The analysis focuses on the advertisements, newscasts and entertainment programs shown during the campaigns of 2005 and 2006. Such process of discourse analysis helps understand how contemporary television constitutes today an autonomous social system and sheds light on how present day society is represented through media – in this particular case, through television. Luhmann´s thinking about theme setting and structural coupling helps understand the complexities of the media machinery in a context where social themes are presented through a process of “joining together” between Globo and other institutions – in particular third sector institutions. This process results in the mediatization of social themes, and happens in a time when the preponderance of media gives individuals, syst