Comunicação governamental em tempos de crise: um estudo das narrativas da Prefeitura do Rio de Janeiro no contexto da pandemia de covid-19

Abstract

In front of the disaster imposed by the covid-19 pandemic, local and foreign public authorities were faced with several challenges, but above all with the imminence of the collapse of their hospital systems, with the potential scenario of an increase in fatalities in different areas of their countries. In this global context, Rio de Janeiro, which had recently undergone a remarkable urban renovation to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, faced a previous scenario of economic and political crisis. In the context of crisis experienced by the city, the legacy of these mega-events emerges as a privileged space for questioning and investigation. In this sense, the present research aims to identify, at the municipal level, the narratives proposed by the speeches of the city hall of Rio de Janeiro in the period of the covid-19 pandemic. It also seeks to analyze how the municipal government articulated communication with its audiences in this context of crisis, in the light of the assumptions of public and governmental communication (BRANDÃO, 2012; DUARTE, 2011; WEBER, 2007, 2011, 2020; ESTEVES, 2020; 2015; ROLANDO 2011; MATOS, 2011). In addition, it was intended to identify the differences in the discursive strategies used and in the meanings constructed by communication in the management of Mayor Marcelo Crivella and Mayor Eduardo Paes, as well as to envisage a contribution to the debate around the construction of governmental communication strategies in moments of crisis in Brazil, specifically in the city of Rio de Janeiro. To this end, a corpus was created with 1014 “News” published on the coronavirus.rio website, a communication channel created by the city hall. The corpus of “Notícias” was analyzed based on the theoretical-methodological framework of French semiotics (BARROS, 1990; FIORIN, 20056; GREIMAS; COURTÉS, 2008) and with the aid of the NVivo® software for data processing. The analysis reveals two narratives that summarize the discourse under study: (a) prevention narrative and (b) response narrative. The city government thus assumes a dual role in relation to the pandemic - sometimes as a “protector”, sometimes as a “savior” -, which configures the discursive ethos of a “protector-manager”, consolidated from various discursive strategies. Indeed, some of the basic principles of governmental communication can be observed - such as accountability, accountability, proactivity - present in the analyzed speeches, but from an informative perspective that, in most cases, favors the positive aspects of municipal administration. The city government seeks a positive image of the government vis-a-vis the population, largely concealing political and social issues of real public interest. As for the administrations of Mayor Crivella and Mayor Paes, there are more approximations than departures in their discursive processes in the analyzed period. Thus, it is not possible to verify that the governmental communication of the city hall of Rio de Janeiro opts for a narrative supported by dialogic precepts, advocated by a State communication based on the democratic parameters of public communication.