Spectacle and scandal in the political coverage of the Jornal Nacional

Abstract

The text analyses the role the main Brazilian evening news program play during key political moments in the country, and how it exerts control over it and specifically the electoral periods. Collected data suggest that, as a result of handling valences, the coverage of the Jornal Nacional in the last two presidential elections was based in several circumstances. Scandal denounces and political crises provoke unbalance in the discourse, and moving from spectacle to interference enables the news program to change the routes of the process.