Entre o cuidado e o estigma: as abordagens do Jornal Nacional sobre o sujeito velho na pandemia da Covid-19

Abstract

This research aims to investigate if the approaches made by Jornal Nacional about old people in the contexto of the Covid-19 pandemic, betwenn the months of January and March 2020, contribute to reinforce or to deconstruct stigmas about those people. To reach this purpose, three specific objectives were outlined: a) to discuss the trajectory of media concepts, stigmas and approaches about old people; b) discuss features of journalism as a builder of realities that allows the audience to formulate opinions; c) behold, describe and analyze the Jornal Nacional’s approaches to the old people in the research corpus. These objectives were guided by concepts and discussions proposed by Goffman (2004), Debert (2003), Peixoto (2004), Gutmann (2012), Vizeu and Correia (2007), Becker and Teixeira (2009), Williams (1979), among others. In its methodological path, this scientific investigation, with a qualitative approach, was developed through cultural analysis. The final results showed that, in the analyzed period, the JN contributed to reinforce the stigmas about the old people. By being inserted in a youth culture society as na ideal standard and abhorring the culture of aging, Jornal Nacional reproduces dominant ideas that manifest a discomfort with the old people, culminating in social practices in favor of social elimination, accountability and punishment of old masked in a prevention speech to Covid-19.