Who they are and how there in journalism: analysis of the discourse on transsexuality and travestism in two newspapers of Recife/Brazil

Abstract

Considering journalism (in Western societies) as an institution that, in its present form, results from both the political progress that made possible the affirmation of democracy as a hegemonic system, as the advances of capitalism and colonialism, we propose some reflections about this fundamental paradox which conditions the readings and achievements of contemporary journalism. To this end, as object of analysis we consider the discourses that Jornal do Commercio and Aqui PE – two Pernambucan newspapers – publish about transgender people. Looking at those phenomena as legitimizing violence and social marginalization (as they are historically constructed in the West and hegemonically reproduced), and pointing journalism as privileged space for struggles of visibility and significance of social reality, we ask: where, and according to which rationality, does nonconforming gender people exist for/to that institution? The work is based on the Constructivist Theories of Journalism and the Subaltern Theories (Queer Studies and Postcolonial Studies).