Do discurso da censura a censura do discurso: o direito à liberdade de expressão nos jornais brasileiros

Abstract

In this article we analyze how three major Brazilian newspapers (Jornal do Brasil, Folha de São Paulo and Jornal do Commercio) presented to society the issue of the right to freedom of expression in two distinct periods of our democracy: first in 1987 and 1988, during the work of the Subcommittee on Science and Technology and Communication, which prepared the text that served as the basis for Chapter V (Communication) of the Constitution. Then, in the coverage given by the newspapers mentioned to the 1st National Communication Conference, which in December 2009 brought together government, companies and civil society in a debate on freedom of expression, press and mass communication regulation in the country. Our objective is to examine how the media used the discourse to defend the freedoms of expression and of the press as an ideological instrument of protection and maintenance of their material and symbolic interests in the political and economic spheres. The data show that most large vehicles  misrepresent such concepts, almost always relating communication with the effective realization of the non-intervention (state or social) in the business of individual right to freedom of expression.