Democracy, Corruption and Media: Folha de S. Paulo and the fall of Antonio Palocci

Abstract

This article aims to study the media performance newspaper Folha de São Paulo on suspicions that fell on the head former Minister of Civil Government House Dilma Rousseff, Antonio Palocci, from May 15 to June 8, 2011. From a theoretical reflection on the power of the media, whose materiality is realized also in reporting cases (or suspected) cases of corruption, will reflect on the concept of political corruption, drawing attention to the implications of the phenomenon and its construction in the media democratic systems. Our empirical study is based on the application of content analysis tools to 145 journalistic pieces, which constitute the analytical corpus. Among the main conclusions we have reached, there is the opposition assumed by the newspaper and the anticipated manufacturing a culpability that has led to the minister's fall, despite the subsequent archive of the case for justice.