Caos no clima : sensacionalismo, comunicação da ciência e a narrativa de O Globo sobre o aquecimento global

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate what is behind the Press discourse on the global warming, more specifically on the public dissemination of this issue which spread in 2007, when the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC was launched. The research takes newspaper O Globo as the object of analysis and identifies a sensationalist approach in its narrative, which contributes to multiply public attention paid by readers to the climate change and to information provided by the scientific community. To support this hypothesis, the study starts from a reflexion upon the ideal of objectivity as the permanent guide to the newspaper activity. In an attempt to disconstruct the concept generally attributed to sensationalism, the paper assumes that sensationalist elements can be present in any journalistic narrative in a higher or lower degree, which leads to cultural roots that contribute to bring the audience close to this kind of narrative. Assessment of communication and science popularization is also provided, since they occur in a public environment where scientists and newspapermen fight for the right of speech, each one of them struggling to sustain his authority, to guarantee his professional environment and to keep public reliability.