Atleta Real x Atleta de Papel : A perspectiva individual dos atletas paralímpicos e sua representação na mídia impressa

Abstract

The contact with media content offers a dialogue form that opens invisible doors to the world, helping individuals with their sense of belonging, strengthening their conections with several groups. That is, media play an important role in the socialization process. One could assert that the media transmits values, ideologies and beliefs from which social representations about certain groups emerge. As an element in the public opinion formation, the media also has an important effect in how sport is practiced and develops. Nowadays is impossible to think of a major sports event without the media presence. In this sense, is easy to notice that what the media covers and how performs that coverage, and frame the participants in each sport, can be issues that create barriers due to stereotypes, trivialization and underrepresentation. Therefore, this study aims to analyse how the Paralympic athletes were portrayed by the media, through content analysis, and the reception os these representations by the athletes. We analyse the media coverage including the analysis of the newspapers structural elements, photographs, terminologies and stereotypes/slogans of the 2012 Paralympic Games in four Brazilian newspapers O Globo, Folha de S. Paulo, Zero Hora e Estado de Minas and interviewed six athletes. In general, our results show that in terms of images the athlete with major visibility is male with a physical disability amputee, wheelchair user, visual disability which is not hidden by the papers, the generic such as the athletes´names, nationality and age and sportive such the terms athletes , competitors , champion , etc. terminologies were more used, as well as sportive slogans. Meaning, that athletes sportive abilities, or identity, were more frequently framed than their disability. At the interviews we noticed that some athletes prefer to be portrayed exclusively as high level athletes, although others as an example of overcoming. However the strongest theme was the indissociability of the characteristics of the being in its presentation. The interviewees want sport and disability to be portrayed as important parts of their identity