JORNALISTICS DISCOURSES ABOUT THE TERRITORY OF TOBACCO IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

Abstract

The territory of tobacco, located in southern Brazil, is characterized by the production of tobacco in small family properties, which sell their productions to large leaf processing companies. Brazil is the largest exporter of tobacco in the world and the second largest producer and this production is a relevant component in the constitution of the space they call the territory of tobacco. Given this, and the understanding that the media influences the construction of meanings about reality and, ultimately, the symbolic construction of territory, it is proposed in this article to identify the journalistic discourses about the territory of tobacco. The selected media vehicles constitute different types of journalistic practice: the Agência Pública, with a national journalism that presents itself as an alternative to traditional media, and the regional Gazeta do Sul newspaper, characterized here as commercial and hegemonic in the region where it operates, in Vale do Rio Pardo (RS), inserted in the territory of tobacco. The article is based on the literature on territory, culture and discourse analysis and the methodology applied was discourse analysis. From the identification of discursive formations, it was evidenced that the vehicles present antagonistic discourses about the same territory, about the same tobacco production.