Witnessing on TV: "Profissão Repórter" and the staging of staging

Abstract

The text discusses the televised staging of testimony in the Profissão Repórter program, displayed by TV Globo. In the light of the second edition of the program on the closure of Jardim Gramacho landfill in the city of Duque de Caxias (RJ) in 2012, we analyze the testimonial place occupied by reporters and subjects entangled in this narrative. To do so, we start from the propositions of studies known as media witnessing, especially those interested in the textual mediation of testimony. Then we discuss the staging as part of television regime of visibility, highlighting strategies and distinctive characteristic rituals of the object itself. Finally, we examine the staged aspect of the witnessing on television, which is revealed, at the end, governed by the logic of insertion in scene by that filming, and less by the opening of television instance to the mise en scène of subjects.

Keywords:
Media witnessing; Television; Profissão Repórter; Staging; Journalism