How the portuguese media represented the first racialized female MP head of a political party

• Autor(a) principal: Cardoso, Carla Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Lamy, Sónia, Cerqueira, Carla, Martins, Carla, Cardoso, Daniel, Barradas, Alexandra, Ragasová, Anna
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10437/12168
• topic: COMUNICAÇÃO; MEIOS DE COMUNICAÇÃO; POLÍTICA; JORNALISMO; INTERSECCIONALIDADE; COMMUNICATION; MEDIA; POLITICS; JOURNALISM; INTERSECTIONALITY

This paper is part of an ongoing research that analyses the news coverage of the first six months of the parliamentary term of Joacine Katar Moreira, the first racialized woman head of the political party LIVRE (meaning ‘free’) in the general elections of 2019 in Portugal. PhD in African Studies, black woman, feminist and anti-racism activist, the first MP with a stutter, Joacine Katar Moreira arrived at the House with a renowned academic career and a history of engagement in the social area. The starting question which guides this research is: how did the national press – in both print and digital formats – represent Joacine Katar Moreira from 6 October 2019 to 6 April 2020? This period of analysis enables us to follow the two initial stages of her MP’s term - the debut as MP and the exit from LIVRE following irreconcilable disagreements. In February 2020 she became an independent MP and from this date onward, the media agenda was dominated by the issue of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of the 2019 parliamentary elections, three new political parties entered the Portuguese Parliament: Chega! (meaning ‘Enough!’, far-right), Iniciativa Liberal (meaning ‘Liberal Initiative’, right-wing) and LIVRE (left-wing). It was expected that after the new parliamentary composition was settled, routine would set in which would dilute the novelty conferred by the media to the presence of these three parties. This would not be the case with LIVRE, as a result of the processes of Othering performed by the media, vis-a-vis the social situatedness of Joacine Katar Moreira. Throughout nearly four months, LIVRE and Joacine Katar Moreira would take up the media agenda, going from the euphoria of victory and the focus on the MP’s differentiating features, to the disputes between her and the party she was elected for. The process would come to a head on 3 February 2020, when LIVRE withdrew its political trust in Katar Moreira, who refused to leave the Parliament and became a non-attached member. The research aims at understanding how the Portuguese national press represented, framed and narrated the Joacine Katar Moreira case, not only the surprise of her election but to which extent her political persona defied the established patterns of Portuguese political news coverage. This paper will share the first results of the study. The corpus includes the front pages of newspapers, covers of magazines and homepages of nine selected media, both quality and popular press with different political approaches: Correio da Manhã, Diário de Notícias, Expresso, jornal I, Jornal de Notícias, Observador, Público, Sábado and Visão. The news and opinion pieces of the selected media are analysed using an intersectional approach, seeking to ascertain the dimensions used by newspapers, magazines and websites to represent Joacine Katar Moreira at their most important device as well as the implications of this social construction.