A cobertura jornalística e as consequências dos escândalos judiciais mediáticos

: o caso do Correio da Manhã

Abstract

Mediated judicial scandals are legal processes that linger in history as moments of tension, break mindsets and, depending on the intensity, of legislative amendments. Yet, they put together two key areas: media and Justice. In a country where proliferate these cases it is important to assess how these stories are presented in newspapers, how is performed press coverage and what the are the effects on consumers of media. To answer these questions, a content analysis of the newspaper Correio da Manhã was done - print and website - on 'Apito Dourado' and 'Face Oculta's processes. The first one highlights the corruption that defrauded football, and the second brought up transactions between prominent figures from business and political areas. The theoretical approach was performed with contributions from the areas of Journalism, Law and Sociology, in order to build a basis that reflects the main points of convergence and divergence between media and judicial actors, main problems inherent to the scandals and its influence in building public opinion. To get fuller view on the subject, the empirical framework was split into two studies. The first focuses on the publication news coverage; the second verifies the media performance impact on readers opinion. The results showed, namely, that the coverage of the two cases followed hyped guidelines that generated a negative feeling in society and influenced the notion of guilt/innocence of the defendants, acting as judgments in media and in public opinion.

Date of Award	12 Feb 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rogério Santos (Supervisor)