“A word is enough to the wise?!”: a study on narratives produced by the media when translating the role of the players involved in the Operation Car Wash in Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to analyze how the media translates the role of those involved in the Operation Car Wash in Brazil, the events, relationships, antecedents and consequences, producing the narratives consumed by society. This is a qualitative research, based on the analysis of narratives and the assumption that the social construction of reality is a process grounded on the meanings the media attributes through their narratives. Based on secondary data collected from three media channels - Revista Carta Capital, Revista Veja, and Revista Exame - selected from an initial search, the study carried out a narrative research. The data analysis was based on Shuman’s (2012) proposal for narrative analysis that only contemplated the cover stories. The results identified and characterized four narratives, pointing out how the roles of the players involved in the Operation Car Wash were translated in each of them. Then, it was identified that the negotiation of meaning by media vehicles is related to the responsibility of those involved in the scheme investigated by Operation Car Wash. It is concluded that the media promotes the mediation of interpretations in this process of translation, insofar as it constitutes a legitimate spokesperson for a specific version, as well as it mobilizes relations that culminate in the crystallization of texts believed to be true and used as source to support positions on the part of the various actors in society.

Keywords:
Operation Car Wash; Wrongdoing; Media; Translation; Narratives