Classes sociais e jornalismo popular: uma visão a partir de leitores da cidade de Pelotas/RS sobre e no jornal impresso Diário Gaúcho

Abstract

The journalism that is directed to the popular classes has already received several types of classifications. From one point of view, it is identified as a brown press, with low quality, sensationalist, reaffirmation of stereotypes, from another, it is used to classify a type of journalism with regional and local approaches, as a communicative tool among the readers of a certain region. For this research, a study about and in the printed newspaper Diário Gaúcho(DG) is going to be done. Having as a problem, to comprehend and explain which factors lead the reader to consume the printed newspaper Diário Gaúcho, in the city of Pelotas/RS, and the repercussions of the information consumption in the life of the reading agents. Complementarily, it is necessary to investigate the taste and preferences of the readers, in order to identify in which social classes they are. Observing how the newspaper company classifies its readers as belonging to “Class C”, used as an economic parameter by the newspaper production and commercialization system as a way to maintain a line of journalistic matters for its target audience. Therefore, the focus of this dissertation lies on deconstructing the idea of class "C" conceived as target audience for the sale of DG newspaper, with the objective of constructing the concept of popular class from the theoretical – methodological elements of Pierre Bordieu’s sociology. As a theoretical basis to support the inquiries of this dissertation, Max Weber (2005), John B. Thompson (1995), Ciro Marcondes Filho (1984; 1986), Márcia Franz Amaral (2006), André Salata (2012), Pierre Bourdieu (2007) and Theodor Adorno (2009) were used. Methodologically, questionnaires to the readers were applied at eight newspaper points of sale in the city of Pelotas, and five interviews with interested readers were conducted. Finally, it was understood that the readers of the printed newspaper Diário Gaúcho of the city of Pelotas/RS, participants of this research, belong to a popular class. This conclusion is made through the position taken, in this case, the choices and practices of DG readers in: buying the cheapest newspaper, collecting promotional stamps, free time or a break from work, the crossword, in reading, the preference for soccer news, a category popularly known as "national passion" among Brazilians.