Media representation of the affectionate President in times of a pandemic

Abstract

This paper analyses the media representation of the President of the Portuguese Republic during the Covid-19 pandemic, decreed by the World Health Organization. In order to understand the general traits of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s media coverage, we have analysed newspaper articles published over one month in four Portuguese generalist daily newspapers “ Correio da Manhã, Observador, Público and SIC Notícias. The corpus of analysis consists of 375 news articles. The analysis shows an intense news production: on average, 12 articles were published each day, predominantly long (53.3%), neutral news pieces (45.1%), and in news format (85.9%). Marcelo is the event and central figure in about 80% of the press material. The reference to affections is significantly represented (44.5%). This empirical study demonstrates how changes in context and behaviour imposed by a pandemic have affected and influenced the media coverage of the President of the Republic.