Revista Compolítica (Jan 2012)
Affirmative action in Veja magazine: editorial strategies and framework of public debate
Abstract
A substantial part of the scholarly literature on Veja magazine has pointed to the marked conservative political bias of its journalism, be it when dealing with themes such as public policies or with values and behavior. In other words, Veja rejects the ideal of journalistic neutrality, rhetorically espoused by other news media operations, and practices a journalism that is ridden with opinion. In this article we intend to test the hypothesis that Veja also treats race-based affirmative action with bias, which is openly against these policies. We first conduct a valence analysis of all texts published by the magazine on this issue, from January 2001 to June 2009. Next, we do a content analysis of the main arguments employed against affirmative action, also taking into consideration their temporal evolution. Results show that until 2003 Veja did not have an editorial stance regarding the matter, starting that year, it adopted a clear contrarian point of view that remained constant until the end of the period studies. From 2003 to 2006, the most prevalent arguments accused affirmative action of violating the principles of merit and equality before the law. Around 2006, Veja changes the tone of its discourse, and starts to echo the voices of academics who accused affirmative action of promoting racialization and racial conflict in the country.
