Destextualização e(m) íconotextos na/da comunicação política brasileira

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the discourse of select media outlets in the 2010 Brazilian presidential elections, based on the theoretical and methodological framework proposed by Dominique Maingueneau (2008, 2010, 2014). We understand discourse as an intersemiotic practice. Therefore we analyze the ways in which meanings are put to circulation in the media through cartoons, photomontages and photographs, and we evaluate to what extent such meanings constitute deontic paths of interpretation. We also base our analysis on Baronas (2013), who applies Maingueneau’s framework to multimodal texts, focusing on the phenomenon of iconotext detachment, given that there are image clippings that acquire relative textual autonomy and are detachable from its source text. The object of study of this article is composed by news reports, political cartoons, opinion pieces and interviews, which narrate the political relationship between Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. These circulated in blogs, magazines, print and online versions of newspapers during the 2010 Brazilian Presidential Elections. Our findings reveal that one important mode of meaning creation in Brazilian political communication is based on detachment of image signifiers, which function discursively toward directing the reader toward a deontic interpretive path.