Narrativas da vulnerabilidade: notícias do cárcere na região Norte do Brasil

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the narratives of prison vulnerability in the Northern Region of Brazil, seeking to understand how journalistic narratives about the Prison System are constructed and how they contribute to shaping meanings regarding incarceration and the incarcerated individual. To this end, journalistic texts were collected using the SocialMediaGov application, which enabled targeted searches on the social media platforms of the main news outlets in each state of the Northern Region. As a filter, the platform was set to search exclusively on Instagram, followed by direct access to the official websites of the respective media outlets. The study includes a characterization of the national Prison System, highlighting the specificities of incarceration in the Northern Region, and examines the relationship between prison data, prison vulnerability, and aspects of structural racism present within such institutions. It also explores theoretical concepts such as the right to communication as a dimension of citizenship, narrative, social vulnerability, news reporting, and the sources used in constructing the narratives about prisons in the Northern Region. The chosen methodology for organizing the news data was Content Analysis (CA), aiming for qualitative inference, with attention to the valence of the news stories (whether positive or negative).The analysis revealed that the vast majority of journalistic content about the Prison System in the Northern Region focuses on negative narratives, such as prison escapes, riots, and structural problems. In contrast, news stories with a positive valence—such as those reporting on resocialization projects, vocational training courses, and paid work programs for inmates—receive minimal coverage in regional media outlets.