Cidade sitiada, sentidos militarizados: a intervenção militar no Rio de Janeiro pelas páginas do O Globo

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to identify in the articles of O Globo the legacies that were left by the mega events to the public security of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The central focus is military intervention, considered to be the area's most evident legacy, as the expenses on the international events led to an economic crisis that negatively impacted police work and, consequently, increased the sense of fear among tourists and residents. This study begins from the premise that the cases of violence were cyclically narrated by the newspaper, serving to generate fear and legitimizing the permanence of the army on the streets. The journalistic narratives dialogued with the readers' memories of fear, while presenting the intervention as a viable and indispensable solution to the mitigation of insecurity. In addition, the intervention may have served to promote politicians with low-credibility, who saw repressive measures as a way of engaging with their voters and exercising social control. The methodology used was the narrative analysis, following the triple mimesis model proposed by Ricoeur (1994), this author contributed to the investigation of narrative productions and helped to understand the process of meaning formation. To better understand this legacy of fear, we analyzed articles from O Globo published during the year of 2018, because it was the period of the intervention. In summary, the investigations developed by this research allow us to conclude that the fears narrated by the newspaper can serve to legitimize the most repressive security plans, such as military intervention. These plans/ideas, that are ineffective but respond positively to readers and voters’ wishes, are therefore widely defended in journalistic and governmental discourses.