Chapter in the book “Maços na Gaveta”

On 17th September 2009 at the 2009 Rio International Book Fair there was the book signing of Maços na Gaveta, edited by the historian Beatriz Kushnir. A chapter titled “Campo jornalístico, campo da saúde e racionalidades políticas a partir do estudo de caso de um intelectual-jornalista”* was written by me. In this article I analyse the role of the Brazilian physician Dráuzio Varella by some of his texts as columnist in daily  newspaper Folha de São Paulo.

Varella plays the role of doctor and journalist at the same time. He has the right of expression journalistic and is scientifically recognized; he makes use of a not scientific discourse, full of metaphors, certainties and judgments, i.e. scientifically disqualified, but nevertheless statutory. As intelectual-journalist he states certain “establishe rule” and his point of view is radically evolucionist.

Maços na Gaveta assemble analyses of Media and has 15 articles/chapters. It is aimed to turn public some reflections that normally don’t catch the public.

* In English it means “Journalistic field, health field and political rationales through a case study of an intelectual-journalist”

Paper at OBS*

This month Obercom (OBS*) has published my paper called Communication, medicine and evolucionism: case study from Brazilian newspaper. The text is in portuguese, but you can see the abstract in english.

Paper link

This work discuss about the notion of intellectual-journalist in the scientific field in a case study from Brazilian newspaper. With this concept, Bourdieu refers to the role of critics and evaluators judging cultural products and giving them more or less evidence in mass media communication. However, the term does not seem to be restricted to the field of cultural production and, in Brazil, can be seen also in the biomedical area. In the case under study, Dráuzio Varella plays the role of doctor and journalist at the same time. While doctor-journalist he has the right of expression journalistic and scientifically recognized, and yet he makes use of a not scientific discourse, full of metaphors, certainties and judgments, i.e. scientifically disqualified, but nevertheless statutory. The importance of Varella appeared on my doctoral study about obesity/poverty nexus in the Brazilian newspaper “Folha de São Paulo”. As intellectual-journalist, the doctor ratifies certain ‘established order’: he always speaks in a radically evolucionist point of view. As part of the obesity/poverty, his speech emphasizes the notion of obesity as biological anachronism and leads to naturalization and medicalization of poverty, in that it also points to the concept of social darwinism.

Science in question

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact. The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?

In ALIENS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING, By Michael Crichton [January 17, 2003]; an historical approach detailing how over the last thirty years scientists have begun to intermingle scientific and political claims.

Read the complet article

Educating X informing

Interesting discussion about the relationship between media and science. At the scientific weblog A blog around the clock.

To Educate vs. To Inform.

The relationship between journalists ans scientists are not so easy. Besides there’s a confusion about the role of the journalists regarding the scientific information. The media can be very powerful tools to become public some informations, even to the planning of science education. But the role of the journalist is to inform people, not educate them.

Canclini’s conference

Nos encontramos en la sociedad del desconocimiento, marcada por la acumulación de informaciones efímeras y poco importantes que ocupan el lugar de la comunicación pública.
Néstor García Canclini

Néstor García Canclini, professor at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana de México, in his conference at Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. Prime section at the congress I+C Fundacional da Asociación Española de Investigadores en Comunicación.

Title: Investigar la Comunicación (only spanish)

Conference’s pdf

Journalistic field

I’ve been reading the series about Veja writen by the brazilian journalist Luis Nassif. Veja is the biggest information magazine in Brazil and is described by Nassif as the biggest “anti-journalism” phenomena. There are many comments about it but all of them in the internet, none in the big media — regular press and TV channels, for example. The only two media portals in Brazil where we can found articles are Comunique-se and Observatório da Imprensa. It’s a bizarre silence in brazilian media.

I found the interesting Colin Brayton’s blog, an american freelance journalist. He translates and comments the Nassif’s series.

To read the Nassif’s series

Last paper: Communication Studies (Dec 2007)

My last article is in Communication Studies, semestrial scientific review of the Beira Interior University (Covilhã, Portugal). Below, the abstract and the link for the complete text in portuguese.

Risk, dispositives of information and the question of government in relation to the health in contemporary societies

This article discusses the current centrality of the concept of risk in contemporary societies, particularly in relation to the government in its relationship to health. The sense of risk that stands out here is an internalized imposition, from which the authorities set discourses, policies and actions on health – particularly informative, which urge people to evaluate their individual risk and, therefore, change their behavior according to the same risk. In this context, we emphasize the importance of the information devices as privileged strategies of government wich is not limited to formal actions and policies of the State, that extends to the initiatives of others such as private companies; representatives of the society; individuals etc.

Read the complete article, in portuguese

Next events: checklist

Below, the checklist of the meetings that I intend to present papers:

Deadlines	Event	When	Where	Sent?	Accept?
25/01/2008	III Jornadas Internacionais de Jornalismo	14/03/2008	Universidade Fernando Pessoa, Porto	OK	OK
03/03/2008	2nd European Communication Conference	26-28/11/2008	Facultat de Ciències de la Comunicació, UAB, Barcelona	OK	-
01/03/2008	Media, Communication and Humanity: Media@lse Fifth Anniversary Conference	21-23/09/2008	London School of Economics, London	OK	-

Thesis

Title: Obesity and poverty on press: epidemiology of a social question

Abstract

How is the relation between poverty and obesity reported by the daily press in Brazil?

We discuss this question during the increasing visibility of epidemiological data about the growth of obesity amongst Brazilians, especially poor people. But this question is larger than it seems and important due to the universe of significations produced inside the journalistic, politic and health fields in Brazil.

Furthermore, this question incites the socioeconomic dispositifs of risk control. These dispositifs are expressed by individual practices of self control towards a larger emphasis tendency to a minimum State. However, we notice a relation between obesity and poverty: meaning a kind of “scarcity fat” of some nutritional components, access and knowledge of what is “healthy” or “unhealthy”. However, a scarcity of options in the circumstances that choosing is a sine qua non condition for the good work of these dynamics.

We assume that risk is internally imposed, by authorities creating discourses, policies and actions on health, exhorting people to evaluate their risks of becoming sick and to shift their behaviour accordingly.

The media interfaces the individual and him or herself, focusing on his or her self knowledge and self care. But now we see the poverty as well: a socioeconomic problem crossing the notion about risk control, based on personal responsibility, culpability and self management capacity.

The purpose of this work is to present some results of our research regarding the relationship between poverty and obesity in a Brazilian newspaper. Obesity/poverty was the criteria for 65 articles in the Brazilian newspaper “Folha de São Paulo”, from 1996 to 2005. We noticed in the material we analyzed, a remarkable political subject that questioned social policies, with health serving a setting for political disputes about the role of the State, at a time of certain political instances consolidating a neo liberal State in Brazil.