Framing Political Populism: The Role of Media in Framing the Election of Jair Bolsonaro

Abstract

Based on the concept of populism and its relation to media, this paper analyzes the construction of frameworks in editorials from the Brazilian and international press on the election of Jair Bolsonaro as President of Brazil. Our objective is to understand the degree to which these interpretative frameworks of the new Brazilian president express semantic categories of populist rhetoric. Using a methodology based on theories of media framing, we conducted a qualitative study of 22 editorials from the following Brazilian newspapers published during a two-week span in which the first and second rounds of the 2018 presidential election were held: O Globo, O Estado de S. Paulo and Folha S. Paulo; and the following international newspapers: El Pais, The Guardian, Público, Le Monde, Liberátion and The New York Times. The study tests two main hypotheses: (i) the newspapers adopted categories of populism to qualify and politically frame the candidacy of Jair Bolsonaro and (ii) the Brazilian media tried to “normalize” the Bolsonaro candidacy by taking on a less assertive position than that of the international press, which has always framed him as a populist leader.