Entertainment in Political Narratives: considerations from Pixuleco in Folha de S. Paulo

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection about the role of entertainment in political journalism. For that, a theoretical debate is presented, based on the considerations that Street (2003) and Van Zoonen (2005) do on the relations between politics and popular culture. In the argumentative path suggested here, it is also contemplated a discussion about the barriers that are maintained between hard and soft news, based on works that think journalism in articulation with the notion of narrative. The case of Pixuleko, an inflatable doll of former president Lula that appeared in a series of news in Folha de S. Paulo, serves as an illustration for the challenge of the following argument: observing the narrative nature of news can shed light on the challenge of analyzing a journalistic context in that the boundaries between entertainment and information are less apparent. Following the argument, and combining the theoretical debate with the example provided by Pixuleko, it is stated that it is urgent to consider entertainment in the journalistic narrative of politics, not in a key of dissonance, or opposition, but as a constitutive element.