Comunicação de risco e cobertura de desastres: o campo jornalístico e as fontes especializadas

Abstract

Based on Risk Communication assumptions, this paper investigates the relationship between sources and journalists in covering disasters, to evaluate what is the role of the journalist and point out some elements that might contribute to a quality coverage. Methodologically, this paper is based on literature review and individual and semi-open interviews. From the analysis of six months of Zero Hora editions, we mapped and interviewed the expert sources used by the newspaper in articles related to disasters involving climate. We also interviewed the journalists authors of disaster related articles, to know how they deal with the challenge of covering climate and how they relate to the experts. Through interviews, this paper presents the capabilities and antagonisms present in the relationship between journalistic and expert sources fields. This dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first chapter, Society and Risk Communication , addresses the concepts of Risk Society and Risk Communication. The second chapter, entitled social fields and journalistic sources in news coverage of disasters , discusses the concept of field, the specifics and relations between fields, and also the concept of source. The last chapter, The vision of experts on the news coverage of disasters , analyzes interviews with the expert sources and journalists and proposes some actions to guide the journalistic work. The analysis of the interviews is divided into two parts. The first concerns the logic and operation of the journalistic field and covers: news values, determination and relationship between sources and experts. The second part seeks to establish elements for a protocol of action and is divided into three parts: Before: the necessity of prevention , Moment of crisis: precautions and limits to journalists in a disaster and After the disaster: the journalistic oversight . The paper concludes that, like other fields, journalism needs protocols for dealing with risk situations. Moreover, there is still much to advance in the dialog between journalistic field and expert sources, a relationship that has incompabilities, especially considering that the two fields follow a different logic. We understand that the journalist can not be just a witness of facts, but must have an intellectual work to analyze it and understand its role within the network of disasters, in view of the social role of journalism. This dissertation is part of the Media and Identity line of research, because it comprises journalism within the sociocentric paradigm and takes into account the actions of society along with journalism, highlighting the active paper of journalists in the production of information.