América Latina em pauta: narrativas sobre soberania, democracia e crise na editoria de exterior da Folha de S. Paulo (1981-1984)

Abstract

This research investigates the narratives and frames constructed by Folha de S. Paulo about Latin America between 1981 and 1984. The study focuses on the newspaper’s Foreign Affairs section and, in particular, on the Dossiê-Folha, a Sunday editorial format that brought together reports, opinion articles, interviews, chronologies, and visual resources to provide more in-depth coverage of prominent issues on the international scene. The main objective is to understand how the newspaper selected and organized Latin American political, economic, and social processes for Brazilian readers in a context marked by Brazil’s democratic transition and the implementation of the Projeto Folha. The methodological approach combined the quantitative mapping of the regular coverage published in the Foreign Affairs section and of the 27 Dossiê-Folha devoted to the region with a qualitative analysis of the pages. The results show that, although the newspaper remained dependent on international news agencies, it strengthened an authorial space through correspondents, analysts, and illustrators. The study concludes that the Dossiê-Folha operated as a device of narrative integration which, by bringing together different contexts around the themes of sovereignty, democracy, and crisis, produced a particular understanding of Latin America, portraying the region in an ambivalent way: at times as a space of democratic solidarity, and at others as a territory trapped in authoritarianism and instability.