Capoano

Environmental journalism on TV: what has changed in the twenty-first century?

Periodismo ambiental en la televisión: ¿Qué ha cambiado en el siglo XXI?

                                                                                                          

                                                                               Edson Capoano.

                                                                              University Presbiteriana Mackenzie                    

                    /Upper School of propaganda and marketing (ESPM). São Paulo, Brazil.

                                                                               Email: edson.capoano@gmail.com

Abstract: The Master Essay “Globo Reporter: veiled images of nature” written between 2004 and 2006^[1], was about the cultural discourses generated by culture and TV when talking about Brazilian nature. From TV Globo’s Network, this program seemed to be an ideal object of study about environmental journalism. It has four decades of existence, because it is produced by the largest Brazilian broadcaster and because it has very specific television formats, which seem to echo in the Brazilian imagination what is nature. After 10 completed years of the original research, this article will rethink its contemporary cultural discourses on nature, thru environmental images to GR, whether cultural content; and will discuss what has changed in communication and environmentalism since then, updating what has happened in the world, in Brazil and in communication.

Keywords: Globo Repórter; TV; culture; communication; environment

Resumen: El ensayo "Globo Reporter: imágenes veladas de la naturaleza", escrito entre 2004 y 2006, trata sobre los discursos culturales generados por la cultura y la televisión al hablar de la naturaleza brasileña. Programa de la gigante Red Globo de TV  que parecía ser un objeto ideal de estudio sobre el periodismo ambiental, por sus cuatro décadas de existencia, es producido por la mayor emisora brasileña y porque tiene formatos de televisión muy específicos, que tienen eco en el imaginario brasileño sobre lo que es la naturaleza. Después de 10 años completos de la investigación original, este artículo repensará sus discursos culturales contemporáneos sobre la naturaleza, a través de imágenes ambientales a GR, ya sea contenido cultural; y discutirá lo que ha cambiado en comunicación y ambientalismo desde entonces, actualizando lo que ha sucedido en el mundo, en Brasil y en la comunicación.

Palabras clave: Globo Repórter; TV; cultura; comunicación; medio ambiente

Introduction

"In a world where human experience is limited by the speed and the duties of the pace of contemporary life, we increasingly turn attention to havens of peace and perfection."  This is the opening of the introduction of the dissertation thesis on environmental journalism on TV, focused on Globo Reporter, a program on the largest television station in Brazil.

The episode selected to analyze the nature of the images produced by Globo Reporter is Serra da Bodoquena - A fascinating journey through the virgin forests of Serra da Bodoquena at Serra da Bodoquena, in Mato Grosso do Sul, from 01/10/2004. This production was chosen because it shows qualities and contradictions that reveal how complex environmental journalism production is: GR shows human performance to preserve nature, it interviews field biologists in study centers and captures beautiful images of Mato Grosso do Sul. We will see, however, that the smoothly vision of the environment, of biology and of biodiversity is simplified by only one nature, beautiful but only accessible by scientists and the television itself. And it also enchants the viewers as something beautiful rather something that raises their environmental awareness, or promotes learning about the environment and its living beings. The good journalistic work that guided the scientific research for stories for the program loses criticism before the beauty that the program needs to convey. The news content becomes hostage to the images of nature and the audience who will probably stick with its easier content. This impression is reiterated in the making of text from Francisco José, the reporter responsible for the episode Serra da Bodoquena.

We will see that the emphasis on images of animals and beautiful places using adjectives and superlative expressions such as the biggest, the longest, for the first time, a show, many and many reveals the need of the production to call attention to the simplest aspects of the report, not the complexity that the theme carries. As it is the intention of this masters, we aim to find out how the image of nature in Globe reporter consists of a tripod: by its origin, its own natural world; by our imagination and culture that understands nature in different ways; and by television techniques that exhibit, reiterate, artificial and distort. We will try to answer: Do we see and get information effectively from natural elements or from poor abstractions imagery of nature?

The first section of the original Master tried to seek the origins of the program, from its origin in the period of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1984), with its vainglorious roots and experimentalist format. Next, and as the main focus of this dissertation, a GR especial episode about Pantanal in Mato Grosso was analyzed.  Pantanal is an especially rich biome for research and images, which has led to several speeches about nature. This piece looks into the episode’s construction as an audiovisual product and reflects about the cultural texts it was based on.

The second chapter of the paper addresses three related cultural discourses. The first concept portrayed, comes from modernity, which influenced the contemporary way of understanding nature. The following subsection portrays environmental movements from the end of the twentieth century, their ideological aspects and their origins in Brazil. The last, showed the revaluation of nature as a vital element for men. Government resolutions and subsequent environmental agreements, such as Agenda 21, redirected today's societies to start mediating with the new environment. Such cultural productions create images of nature that certainly influence the conceptions of television journalists and viewers.

The third chapter of this work was dedicated to the study of theories on culture that analyze the symbolic construction of nature, without any electronic audiovisual communication support. The first subsection deals with the autonomy of ideas and symbols in nature and the scheme of things. The second part addresses the structuring of signs and texts about culture. The third subsection considered inner images of nature, speeches of man without any journalistic intervention. And the last part of this chapter reflects on overlapping views. One, detached from nature, when man uses reason and culture for freedom; the other, emotional, when he searches for the enchantment of the world and humanity reconnecting with nature.

Thus, the fourth part of this master uses all the previously addressed concepts, but deepens the theories of media and their authors, reflecting on the importance of electronic mediations for linking individuals among themselves and also linking them to the environment they live in. It was highlighted the processes disconnection from what is real from the abandonment of human experience and the rise of the simulation images. The hypertrophy of images of nature and the consequent detachment between television viewers and the environment were other hypothesis to be proven.

                                

The cultural view of nature           

The program Globo Reporter uses a cultural and scientific discourse to confirm that conveys images of nature: a perfect and beautiful environment, but still suffers human interference. Unlike predatory action, that especially mediation, with the medium which is recorded by the TV lens would enlightening nature in order to promote the use sustainable use of natural resources. At the same time, the GR abuses of emotional images, who deny such reasoning. But why the program has cultural texts about nature as many?

The thought developed from Agenda 21 - Agenda 21 remains the global benchmark for the development of projects, initiatives and new agreements for environmental preservation – was disseminated by the centers of excellence environmental, academic and information is essential to understand which images environment we currently have in our imagination and in the media. If for one side are forged in modern thought, whose development depends on image the dissolution of the present and past, including this material and cultural bases, on the other we are starved by the warranty. Albeit through culture and its images. Maintenance a world and sustainable society conversely, the act is contemporary yet devouring and predatory. But think contemporary urban social seems to direct the sustainable attitudes, according to the concepts of Agenda 21.

There are external cultural texts to the man who came by environmental agreements or images pasteurized TV, building the real world and influencing our vision. They are true windows, intimate and personal conceptions of nature produced in our minds - the direct relationship with the environment - and are much more considered binding as the pictures produced industrially on television

Autonomy of the world of ideas

The parallel and independent functioning of the ideas and images of nature becomes increasingly clear. From real elements such as animals and vegetation, rivers and mountains captured by a TV crew, for example, you can create other natural worlds, according to criteria editing, sound and image production.

Even before all the technological paraphernalia contribute to the reconstruction of the imagery real, human beings have dealt with such skill. The ideas that human beings may have created existence and proper and independent functioning of the natural world. However, for materialize, they need to connect to other spheres of human existence, such as culture social and natural elements to take them substrate, content and stay alive. Edgar Morin shows different levels where it forms the culture:

It is necessary to articulate the noosphere in anthropo-social world according to a complex Trinity: psychosphere, sociosphere, noosphere. The psychosphere is the sphere of spirits / brains individual. It is the source of the representations, imagination, dreams, thought. The minds / brains give substance and reality to their representations, myths, dreams, beliefs. They elaborate spiritual substance that will form the seres of mind. But achievement of myths, gods, ideas, doctrines is possible only in and through sociosphere: culture, produced by interactions between spirits-brains, contains the language, knowledge, logical and paradigmatic rules that will allow myths, gods, ideas, doctrines, access to truly be. These, once formed, suck substance, organization, life, psychosphere and sociosphere (Morin, 1998: 109).

There are other realities, so that combine the world of individual and human ideas to the world collective and social. Our world of ideas, individual, only materializes in the social environment when faced with the rules of languages, imaginary holders that each culture adopts:

The mind / brain and the culture condition, eco-organize, limit, release the noosphere, the which conditions, eco-organizes limits, frees the mind / brain and culture. Each of these instances is both ecosystem of the other two, which then will get food, energy, organization, life (Morin, 1998: 109).

We understand therefore that a cultural product binds to other areas, not only does to stay true to the natural world. But carries out such a move to stay alive and independent of that. In this interplay of ideas, you can not know for sure what is a thought individual or social, a particular demand or by collective ideas we use. Or what of them have more power to influence the course of action on the world of things:

Societies domesticate individuals by myths and ideas that, in turn, domesticate societies, but individuals could reciprocally domesticate their ideas and their myths. In the complex game (complementary antagonist, uncertain) of subjection operation, mutual parasitism between the three instances (individual-society-noosphere), there is possibility, greater or lesser, of a symbiotic / liberating demand (Morin, 1998: 109).

And with regard to a television product, which uses culturing processes of constitution to mount up as text, we see a complex parasitism game between the world of ideas of television producers, with techniques, concepts and approaches of the natural world; and of viewers, who have their symbolic universe that dialogue, accepts or subverts the order established by a television program. In the case of this monograph, we believe that such clash, though healthy, it is unfair from the point of view of what is announced as a product media (environmental program) and what actually is (and detached representation natural). And perhaps for that reason the Globe Reporter is the second largest network of hearing Globo television: not work with natural, but with the noosfera which refers Edgar Morin, the world of ideas from the natural, but not dependent on this; a world of ideas that fit into our understanding. To give up the complexity of ecology and up even the ideologies. And the fascinating way in silk eyes and the soul. 

Indoor and outdoor images

The discussion on images of nature should be redirected, so for what we we understand about Earth's natural world, from the signs, texts and culture We assimilate and produce from the material and objective plan. Likewise a TV producer should be concerned about the accuracy of the facts found (the environment external ) and how to put together the script, the text and images so that the public understands (Factors internal of the television process). We must think about external environmental images to us, the world around them, while the nature of images that are already within we, our imagination about them. Dialogue between these two .mundos., The result images of what we mean by natural images. Such information, organized, can form a worldview apart, with rules and operating own. According to Edgar Morin: Knowledge of an individual feeds on biological memory and cultural memory, which are associated in its own memory; it conforms to several reference bodies which are present in it otherwise  (MORIN, 1985: 18).

Human knowledge is made up of elements of the natural world. internal and external to your constitution. and cultural. In the human brain, so there is no drastic separation between these two worlds. This will be useful to understand the reflections of theorists of Media this work because we will see what is consumed by the TV sounds like true, whatever object approached, external to the television structure. therefore the natural real world., are the symbolic constructions on the screen.

We see that the duality of nature and culture holds the world as it is and our vision world about it. We also see the clash between these two poles, the result can hypercomplexity be socio-cultural, ie the ability to progress through the human uncertainties and human errors. Therefore, this study aims to question whether the program Globe reporter reproduces primordial visions of nature - to exalt beauty and perfection – or independently produces another reality , television, which in turn shapes the notion of viewer about the natural world. One way or another, the program has the possibility of forming a collective image of nature that addresses. In 2005, GR was 51.3% Audience in households with television on the large São Paulo 59. That is, each two people with the TV on, one watched the images GR. Hard not influence the thinking of a population. 

When the culture conquers nature

Culture helps the production of real, be it concrete or symbolic, individual or collective. But what is the advantage to take off of the primary references of the human being. Five senses in contact with the medium - to the detriment of our own representations, our world produced by culture? To impose itself on nature, beat -la become autonomous of uncertainties in the world. That was the inspiration of human evolution always in both Modernity devouring as the Contemporary.

By artificiais ways, ''culturais', the men walk haughty towards a destination they themselves designed. For mysterious ways, 'naturais' [...]. However, such distinction between paths . 'culturais' and 'artificiais' suggests at first sight, concept entirely unsatisfactory to 'art' and 'cultura' – 'cultura 'would, according to this criterion, the deliberate imposition of a human meaning to the insignificant number of 'natureza', and 'arte 'would be the method by which the human spirit is imposed on nature (Flusser, 1979: 14-15).

Thus, the human being has its constitution shaped by natural elements that created and the cultural made for her. These constituents also serve as tools and create other for individuals constitute the world around them. The culture 61 serves mediation between human beings and the environment. Is materially in construction tools that change the world, is symbolically by means of ideas that seem insignificant, but actually shape our conception of the world.

Then we see how the seemingly superfluous elements of culture can serve us essential functional tasks for practical life. And beyond these, not just envision material solutions, reach heights of other resolutions on human life, such as symbolic, rational and immaterial. So also work for our survival psychic. Seeing nature of images in totally uncompromising reality TV, this can go unnoticed. But we have assimilated this information as something True, since such images are the only references we have the facts, regions and species. The uncompromising content becomes only discourse and, therefore, truth within our minds. And if we can not prove other images from other realities, innocent representations of the world become true. The communication between man and nature is also done through the devices that used to receive and send the information. If we have the classroom experience, our perception will be of a kind; if only visual, it will be otherwise further from the real one. The point is that within our reasoning, as we have seen with the above authors, not clearly notice the difference between the two images, giving values ​​similar for both types of communication.

Interference of electronic mediation culture

Television programs such as Globo Reporter dialogue with subjective images emotional nature to create links with the viewer. In our pictures interiors, the beauty and the purity of pristine environments or slightly altered by man persist. Paradoxically, we, spectators, we seek the flora and fauna untouched on a cultural production, so human.

In fact, we do not cling to earthly elements, physical, material and living beings. But we link in with the cultural symbols that are on the natural and refer us to beauty and perfection, to victory over the mistake and death. We cling on television, the images of nature. The entrance doors of human information, the five senses, can supply with symbolic experiences of the TV, including the symbolic confrontation with the natural world.

Through images that simulate the encounter with nature, we can supply the lack of nature, which is symbolic in our most primitive mental constitution without we risk or home leave. Initially, this phenomenon is not negative. If we adopt these attitudes to the world, we can get it symbolically acquire it, giving soul to the foregoing without sense to us. Psychologically and symbolically, we can achieve environmental preservation within us. To reframe our conceptions of nature and the world around us, we can do it and collect it symbolically by media companies, whose interest is to attract attention the public without re-signify anything. But if the relationship lasts only for the image, the display in place of experience, it will cost us dearly. If we cling mostly to virtualized sensations nature on TV, stemmed beauty or emotion of the images, for example, admit we do not need the reality or the natural environment to have sensations of nature. We choose only the symbols of nature (the images) and its electronic support (the television show).

Nature and culture, today

The Master Essay “Globo Reporter: veiled images of nature” written between 2004 and 2006, was about the cultural discourses generated by culture and TV when talking about Brazilian nature. However, a lot has changed in communication and environmentalism since then. After 10 years of this research, it is necessary to update what has happened in the world, in Brazil and in communication.

It had been only four years after Rio + 10, the global conference on environmentalism in Johannesburg for updating the large Eco92 in Rio de Janeiro. Nevertheless, the conference was settled before it began, considering the difficulty of consensus among the major economic powers. The US, producing 25% of all smog in the planet, were more concerned with Al Qaeda, Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the attack on the WTC towers in 2001, terrorism was the great global issue, leaving environmentalism on the background. China, however, focused on becoming the second world power, turned a blind eye to any initiative that would break its economic growth of 10% a year.

In Brazil, the minimum income program: Bolsa Familia, elevated millions of people to middle class since 2004 and, therefore, also lifted its consumer market. The purchase of vehicles, the number of residential buildings and waste production grew exponentially. In 2008, Marina Silva, the Minister of Environment resigned after losing to the Rural Caucus, in the cases of commercial release of transgenic foods and deforestation control,  and also to the federal choice for developmentalism rather than environmentalism, in the case of construction of dams on the Madeira River, by approval of the Chief Minister of Staff, Dilma Rousseff.

The western, capitalist and urban world seems to have accelerated even more since then. Information technology was integrated to the human experience, increasing it". 3D glasses and smartphones offer information not only to replace reality, but also about it This is due to technologies like augmented reality.

Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), Czech philosopher naturalized Brazilian, would probably write new books if he saw young people photographing and posting everything they do on all networks when experimenting with tactile and heat sensors to offer information on every step we take in the real world. He would highlight the phrase "reality increased", because of  the claim of human culture to try to make what is real bigger and better than reality.

For these and other phenomena, the master’s dissertation "Globo Reporter: veiled images of nature" seems to remain updated. If in the 2000s nature was an oasis on analyzed TV shows. Today, televisions with high definition cameras and sound display a degree of high fidelity impossible to be reached by nature. We will soon probably be able to touch a jaguar’s hair and smell wildflowers, but still sitting on the couch, who will probably shake in 4D, 5D, 6D...

Capturing, recording and editing techniques have also improved. If in 2006 Globo Reporter mixed emotional attachment with environmental information, today we have real dramatic productions with the flora and fauna as settings and protagonists.

Tricks on plan and counterplan, super zoom, slow motion and drone cameras were improved, getting the environment even closer to the lenses, screens and our eyes.

As to the symbolic retreat that the pseudo environmentalist programs from then became, today it is a market of billions of dollars, led by communication giants such as National Geographic, BBC and the Discovery Channel. The exotic distant places that were registered become ever more magical due to the technical quality of recording, and even natural environments which are common to the viewer become fantastic, given that the way to present them is improved. Television sees the environment better than our eyes and shares this look with us. That is, as long as we sit in front of it.

Marketing is not far behind. "Eco", "sustainable" and "conscious" have been established as keywords for selling from banks to real estate, from fashion to cultural events. Today, it is almost a social obligation to make use of products and information that are environmentally correct. The fear of extinction has generated a variety of narratives. Two of them will be highlighted here. The primordial one, archetypal and mythological, is a great source of fantastic stories for sensationalist reporting. In 2008, there as a misinterpretation of the Aztec Sun Stone, or the Mayan Calendar, which indicated the end of cycles or eras, not the end of the world. Press and infotainment did not worry about this and produced tons of content on the end of the world such as the single-program History Channel did.

In journalism itself, the fear of extinction has become a fact portrayed in headlines. Temperatures are more extreme, losses in agriculture gigantic, the water shortage affects regions where there used to be abundance of it. Weekly, extinction of some species in the planet is portrayed as a threat or literally. Indeed, the world is in the end, at least the world as we knew it to be.

The images of nature held by men are therefore schizophrenic. For one thing, society still overestimates images of nature as something full, eternal and untouchable. On the other hand, it's as if we admitted the end of it and chose culture as a substitute for the natural. This is irrational, but ongoing.

Flusser, with his work "Natural:mind: multiple accesses to the meaning of nature" (1979), shows how humans created culture to become independent from nature and, then, he shows cultural texts on nature, about how to manipulate, control and overcome it. Real nature has always been altered by the way we see it.

Culture helps to produce what is real, be it concrete or symbolic, individual or collective. But what is the advantage of us depriving of our primal references, the five senses in contact with the medium, in favor of our representations, our world produced by culture? To impose ourselves over nature, win it, get rid of the uncertainties of the world. This has always been the inspiration for human evolution, both in Consuming Modernism and in contemporaneity.  In the introduction of the Masters from 2006 it was stated that nature when portrayed on TV is fractional, shredded and altered by mediators, this phenomenon has become more evident, both by communication and information technologies and by the contemporary society, who lives schizophrenically within nature and outside of it. The primary images of nature, however, will continue to exist, whether in the real environment, or in the millions of screens that proliferate in the XXI century, in order to maintain our sanity and also the ratings and page views. For this, Globo Reporter remains to be one of the flagships of TV Globo Network. However the 50% audience from 2000, fell to around 20% in 2010. This was due to the profusion of tablets and smartphones, the increased competition from open and cable channels, aging of the traditional audience not being replaced by youth, and the improvement of the economic status of many Brazilians, who can go out on Friday night instead of watching the world on TV.

One thing is certain, Globo Reporter will, once a month, invest in the magical and unreachable nature as a mixture of information and entertainment. The program continues to be the window of culture and natural images from Brazil on television. It continues to attend to its original proposal, with refined, cinematic visual language, vainglorious and optimistic narrative, in a simple and engaging recipe for giving out information. Thanks to the program, at some point, we will be faced with the new last virgin beaches, the new last animal ever recorded to be seen, the new last plant or fruit with medicinal healing powers.

Conclusions

We seek to understand the images of nature that make up a large program hearing in order to find out which television, journalistic and cultural formats such productions - that address the environment and are widely accepted by the public - use.

The chosen object of study was the news program Globo Reporter, whose episode it approached one of his most recurrent themes, Brazilian nature. We sought one journalistic product to conduct a popular and comprehensive environmental discourse, and we believe the GR, if not is as ecology specialist program is well considered by the population. assumption made because of its audience - as a correct mediator of Brazilian environmental reality. Other more specialized and television products complexes such as the Ecology Globo, Globo Rural or Eco Reporter, lack the repercussion that the GR reach its depiction of nature for half of the connected homes on TV Friday night.

The GR was created with vainglorious direction and national integration as well as the TV Globo journalism throughout the period of military dictatorship. But, paradoxically, it opened space to the left of directors and filmmakers in the 60s and 70. Such references in made it possible to understand the ambiguous function of the currently program: account refinement of the editing and the high standard script and combines the ease of the thematic stereotyped, easily accepted and little thought. This enabled him to fall to the national taste from birth, but today is their main ties for innovation and daring content.

About analyzed episode, Serra da Bodoquena , our hypothesis was that there would be a greater appeal to the beauty of natural elements portrayed in the context of the issues environmental. We understand that the GR tries to balance the two speeches, emotional and rational, although lean toward the first content, more aesthetic nature. That is, through the attachment to beauty speech and the fear of losing the elements that GR keeps the linked public. We understand that rational discourse, existing in the program is in the background, due to the efficiency of audio-visual production. We understand that such discourse, an ambiguity between nature and science, will suit that was later explained in the dissertation as a very common and ancient cultural text format, easy understanding and assimilation. We assume therefore that the RG is promoted as program environmental information, but is linked to the population by archaic formats cultural texts. Such reasoning was proven by the perfection of the environment created by the images of GR. This approach to nature culminates, according to our interpretation, in the sense of perpetuation of the natural images, by maintaining images of nature, and not the nature itself. The public nature preserves, the source of his fascination and awe, through eyes.

By literature searches, we understand that cultural texts that depict the nature They are constantly at a distance, by means of human representations that duplicate the Nature often distanced from reality, such as Eden. The fascination and fear. We are in our minds, keeping us both near and far from nature. Like this also are the sensations produced by television and by GR: the viewer lives the world for receiving incoming signs and not by experimentation. The notion of real-world distance and his trial by addiction the culture we were required to understand the reasons for the nature of the spectacle by GR images. The portrayed environmental elements and altered by issues and sound reinforcement and off informative but with emotional reporter background, among other techniques television, make the GR becoming detached from reality it portrays. And so it creates another,

The television cultural text detaches from nature, to the point that you no longer need to maintain this connection with the audience. Consequently, no It is known whether the public either needs more of nature or is offered a text cultural as fascinating in its place.

We find ourselves with the efficiency of cultural texts to replace the nature, analyze the stretch that fish are electrocuted for the purpose of research. We become connive while hearing by seeing mistreatment to animals in full said program environmental, because we accept a speech to justify such violence. We saw here that nature hosts to human culture, and what we seek in GR ourselves and our stories about nature. Since culture justifies what we do with playthings natural, we will continue watching to environmental programs, however contradictory and ambiguous they are. After all, we were conquered by the beauty and perpetuation of flora and fauna made by TV images. When this speech is reversed, however, through shock images in fish or shooting and fainting ounce Elisa, scientific reason overlaps in off and on keeps watching the GR. In another ambiguous process, now we hope for nature as we do in a soap opera, returning to the emotional appeal.

Such is the independence of the GR - as well as any other text - about the nature We are witnesses (only eye) the symbolic resurrection, through TV tricks of an animal now extinct. This is the greatest metaphor of GR that fascinates and scares: life does not It is the natural elements, but in reconstruction in these media standards. That essay questions, so if there is no imbalance between nature and its images. We consider the environmental preservation of ideology can be mistaken for GR, such expertise who stops to recreate the natural through the virtual.

We endow the TV, GR and the importance of images, not the nature and our interaction with this that can save her. Next, we seek the understanding of the global environmental movement and Brazil in order to assume as would be the imagination of viewers, societies and vehicle communication in relation to nature.

The environmental movement was born of political and social demands in the 60s, so until today carries the sense of preserving the natural environment and man built into it. Already ecology focuses on the preservation of environmental resources, with minimal human interference. These two currents founded the preservation movement of the recent conditions in Brazil, which had influence of leftist movements. From the Brazilian democratization of 80, Brazil professionalized its environmental discussion mechanisms to the point host the Eco-92 and be inserted in most treaties and global conservation agreements nature. We also saw that environmental issues sprayed up in Brazilian society, phenomenon that can be recorded in various NGOs that deal with the subject. We have seen how the concept of nature is malleable to different directions, from interests of producers of this crop. This article worked in production concepts culture, and we see how this is the mediator between the environment and man. Modernity, for example, carried with it a host of cultural options that have changed the use of concepts of nature, justifying the unsustainable consumption patterns and contemporary destruction. We understand the nature and its relationship with man can be an entirely subjective phenomenon. And we emphasize that today, the cultural product on nature more accepted by contemporary societies is the Agenda 21, a letter of intentions aimed at the sustainable development of the planet. All these images permeate the imagery of the GR and the audience, adapting to phenomena of electronic mediation of reality. We have seen that the cult value to images, more emotional than rational, easy consumption programs and surface production therefore.

All these phenomena are possible because the environmental and televised speech lies based images, cultural texts, carrying immortality objects represent. So allow image worship as sacred because they are permanent. The images of environment, in man, make instincts and senses asleep on TV . At the same time, the exaggeration of the environmental image display as well as the sameness of guidelines portrayed hypertrophy our minds to new images of nature. Excess images can create environmental disgust. Like this, hypothesized that excessive environmental images produced by the TV causes, first of all, the opposite function of the images: a function anti-windows between man and his environment.

References

Baitello Jr., N. (2005). The era of iconofagia: essays on communication and culture. São Paulo: Hacker.

Brundtland, G. H. (1987). Report of the World Commission on environment and development: our common future. United Nations.

Flusser, V. (1979). Natural: mente: vários acessos ao significado de natureza. São Paulo: Duas Cidades.

Guattari, F. (1990). Las tres ecologías. Campinas: Papirus.

Hillman, J. (1993). Cidade e alma. São Paulo: Nobel Studio.

Morin, E. (1973). O paradigma perdido: a natureza humana. Portugal: Europa América.

Morin, E. (1991). O método IV: as idéias. Portugal: Europa-America.

Sitarz, D. (1993). Agenda 21: The earth summit strategy to save our planet. Flagstaff: EarthPress.

Viola, E. J. (1987). O movimento ecológico no Brasil, 1974-1986: do ambientalismo à ecopolítica. São Paulo: Cortez Editora.

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^[1] “Globo Repórter: veiled images of nature” (2006). Available in https://sapientia.pucsp.br/handle/handle/4783

Travassos, Camargo y Fortunato

Unequal urbanization: rivers, media and ecological modernization

Urbanización desigual: ríos, medios y modernización ecológica

Luciana Travassos. Federal University of ABC (PGT). E-mail: luciana.travassos@ufabc.edu.br  

Claudio Luis de Camargo Penteado. Federal University of ABC (PCHS). E-mail: claudio.penteado@ufabc.edu.br

Ivan Fortunato.  Federal Institute of São Paulo, Itapetininga, at the Federal University of ABC (PCHS) and at the Federal University of São Carlos, Sorocaba (PPGEd-So). E-mail: ivanfrt@yahoo.com.br

Abstract: The paper deals with the media coverage (between 2006 and 2016) of the rivers and streams of São Paulo, analyzing the discourse that supports the maintenance or the rupture of the waterways channeling paradigm, which was established throughout the 20th century. The hypothesis is that the media coverage gives more prominence to reports related to the maintenance of the paradigm, but in the areas where the population of middle and upper income classes lives, especially in the expanded center, it is emphasized the restoration of urban rivers, which is linked to the ecological modernization paradigm. The results suggest that the paradigm shift has in fact been considered more expressively in these areas, mainly due to non-governmental organizations and environmental movements, while the results confirmed the maintenance of the channeling paradigm of streams in the suburbs, especially, when it comes to precarious settlements.

Keywords: urban policies; rivers; urban inequalities; São Paulo; O Estado de São Paulo newspaper.

Resumen: El artículo trata sobre la cobertura mediática (entre 2006 y 2016) de los ríos y arroyos de São Paulo, analizando el discurso que sustenta el mantenimiento o la ruptura del paradigma de canalización de las vías fluviales, establecido a lo largo del siglo XX. La hipótesis es que la cobertura mediática da más importancia a los informes relacionados con el mantenimiento del paradigma, pero en las áreas donde vive la población de clases medias y altas, especialmente en el centro ampliado, se destaca la recuperación de ríos urbanos, que está vinculada al paradigma de la modernización ecológica. Los resultados sugieren que el cambio de paradigma ha sido considerado de manera más expresiva en estas áreas, principalmente debido a organizaciones no gubernamentales y movimientos ambientales, mientras que los resultados confirmaron el mantenimiento del paradigma de canalización de arroyos en los suburbios, especialmente cuando se trata de asentamientos precarios.

Palabras-clave: Canalización; Centro ampliado de São Paulo; Periódico O Estado de São Paulo.

Introduction

This paper deals with the media coverage of the rivers of São Paulo, capital of the state of the same name and the principal city of the largest metropolis in South America, with approximately 11 million inhabitants (20 million in the region). This article analyzes the coverage of the media between 2006 and 2016, in order to verify possible changes on the discourse about the treatment of rivers and streams and their channeling and recovery, as well as if these discourses are unevenly distributed across the territory, between central and suburban areas.

In contemporary societies, media coverage has effects on the formation of the political agenda (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), as well on the orientation and evaluation of public policies (Penteado & Fortunato, 2015) and, as an autonomous device for social power structures maintenance (Van Dijk, 2008). In this sense, journalistic coverage on the forms of public intervention in the channeling of rivers and streams, illustrates the political and technopolitical discourses that seek to legitimize, along with public opinion, the paradigms of public policies differentiated performance between rich and poor regions.

Thus, alongside the technical positioning, the role of public opinion stands out in the decision making about urban rivers and floodplains, which can be observed by the tone of newspaper news in each era and by the residents requests highlighted in this news. At the end of the nineteenth century, the State of São Paulo reported the embellishment of the Carmo floodplain and the need to channel and cover the Anhangabaú River. In the first quarter of the century, a series of articles written by the architect Milcíades Porchat (1920), published in the Jornal do Commercio, required the channeling of Tiete River and the construction of side lanes to the river, connecting the Lapa borough to Penha borough. Right after the Prestes Maia’s Avenues Plan, in the 1930s, the mayor Fábio Prado (1936) gave a long interview to the newspaper, noting that construction of an avenue over the Itororó Stream “will contribute with the city of São Paulo, which will be able, in the course of the next 3 years, perhaps, to offer one of the best tours that a civilized city can have[1]”. Since then, there have been numerous articles and reports exposing the issue of valley bottom, requesting and reporting on their channeling and the construction of a road system, but the streams mentioned were usually the same: Traição, Sapateiro, Uberaba, Água Preta, Rio Verde – which are all water bodies located in the areas where the population with the highest income lives. Since the 1980s, other rivers have begun to appear in the news, such as Pirajussara and Aricanduva, as the channeling policy of streams reached their basins, and mainly because of many flooding episodes that the residents of these water bodies bank suffered.

The São Paulo rivers, especially those of the Expanded Center, however, have over again become news in recent years because the paradigm shift represented by linear parks and initiatives in other countries, which have gained the media highlights. Now, the discourse is about the recovery of rivers, especially those that are under avenues in valued areas of the city. The clamor for discovering or deculverting the rivers of the expanded center may result in new public investments in the areas with good infrastructure of the city and the maintenance of the invisibility of the rivers occupied by precarious settlements in the periphery areas, where the great majority of the population lives.

Currently, there are two main paradigms of intervention on urban rivers and streams in São Paulo: one that represents the continuity of the channeling model and the construction of valley bottom avenues and, another, that represents rivers recovery for the landscape, which can be understood as a paradigm of ecological modernization. Both paradigms seek to legitimize their interventions through technical speech. While the former advocates a standardized way of acting that has brought numerous problems to the city, the latter constructs an ecological discourse to justify its actions, but it only privileges the noble and most valued areas of the city, silencing the problem in periphery regions. However, these two paradigms are based on interventions that do not discuss the model of urban occupation, and they both replicate a logic of exclusion of the most needy population, which suffers from the lack of adequate treatment of water bodies and their banks.

The visibility of the dispute between these two paradigms, which aim to legitimize their actions before public opinion, is evidenced by journalistic coverage. In this sense, it is necessary to develop research to study the types of coverage in relation to social-environmental policies of public intervention, in this case in relation to the urban rivers and streams of São Paulo. After all, how are the city's communication channels covering the news related to urban rivers and streams? What kinds of paradigms are being defended or criticized? Which actors and approaches are gaining greater visibility?

With the objective of trying to answer these questions, this study grouped an interdisciplinary team of researchers, from the urban planning and media studies areas, to carry out a study on the coverage of the largest newspaper of São Paulo, The São Paulo State (in Portuguese: OESP), focusing on news related to the theme of rivers and urban streams.

In this way, we seek to investigate: what is the coverage of the media, more specifically the coverage of the newspaper OESP, about the situation of rivers and streams in São Paulo and the intervention of public power? Does the media cover the main socio-environmental problems related to the rivers and streams of São Paulo or does it only reinforce the existing technological paradigms? What are the main sources that gain space within the journalistic coverage on the subject?

The hypothesis that aims to answer these questions is related to a type of public (policy) intervention that favors a technological paradigm, which uses the media to legitimize its practices and to influence the governmental actions in relation to urban river management in the city of São Paulo. Therefore, we believe that media coverage gives greater emphasis to reports related to the maintenance of the paradigm but it emphasizes the paradigm of urban river recovery, linking it to the ecological modernization in water bodies located in noble areas, or areas in which lives the population of middle and upper income classes, especially at the expanded center.

            In this paper, we start from a wide historical panorama about the relation of São Paulo with its rivers, highlighting the two main paradigms of interventions. In the second section, we present a theoretical discussion about the emergence of the paradigm of ecological modernization and its form of intervention in urban rivers. Next, we bring a theoretical discussion about the media power and its influence on public policies, focusing the coverage of environmental issue. The methodology used for the study is described in part four, while the research results are presented in the sequence. In the end, from the data gathered, we seek to demonstrate how the media can legitimize environmental actions, even if these are not sustainable per se.

São Paulo: paradigms of intervention over its rivers

Historically, the city of São Paulo is metaphorically indebted with its rivers, since the first place of cultural establishment was on a hill (today the place is referred to as the Historical Triangle) flanked by the Tamanduateí and Anhangabaú floodplain areas: fishy and navigable rivers, which provided fertile ground for agriculture (Fortunato, 2015). We can even say that the city and its rivers lived in harmony until the beginning of the 20th century, when the national and international conjuncture allowed the urban-industrial development of the country: the geography of São Paulo played a major role in the intense growth of São Paulo (Fortunato, 2016). Thus, the rivers of São Paulo were becoming objects of intervention for urbanization as the city approached their banks – of course, it do not reach all the urban area, but the part that legally attended (most of) the rules stipulated for subdivision and edification (Maricato, 2000). The first actions took place on the Historical Triangle, that is, the Tamanduateí and Anhangabaú rivers, focused on sanitation actions, especially to increase the flow of sewage dilution. At that time, the discussions around Tietê and Pinheiros rivers were mainly focused on the generation of electric energy.

As the urbanized area approached and surpassed the floodplains, the debate over the regularization of the banks and riverbeds became more present, as some episodes of flooding began to reach homes and built urban infrastructure. Thus, the issue of sewage and its bad smell, and floods have increasingly became the main justifications for rivers and streams channeling (Travassos, 2004).

A discussion on how to occupy the floodplains took place along with the decisions about rivers and their waters. Therefore, the first three decades of the 20th century witnessed intense debates about the conception of urbanization of rivers and floodplains, with projects ranging from the creation of bucolic landscapes to their total distance from the landscape by constructing underground galleries and a road system. The model that guided the relation of the rivers with the city was established in 1930, with the Prestes Maia’s Plan of Avenues. From that, it was established that the only and best form of intervention in watercourses and floodplains was the gallery channeling and the construction of a road system over the channel. This was called the establishment of a technological paradigm, that is, a model that was implanted beyond any doubts (Travassos, 2004). Until the 1970’s, such interventions were in line with city road plans. In that decade, due to the existence of large federal funds, the channeling of streams and the construction of floodplain avenues began to integrate improvement programs, that is, wherever there was a stream to be treated, that was the intervention to be carried out (Travassos, 2004).

At the first decade of the 21st century, the paradigm began to change, in particular due the introduction of greenways or parks in the floodplains made by the Plano Diretor Estratégico (City Strategic Plan) of 2002. Thus, at the end of this decade, a growing understanding that the works built up to that time had not been effective in reducing flood episodes generated a significant change in the urban drainage approach of São Paulo. It was decided to drop the idea of quickly drain the rainwater for the idea of water storage, which was mainly due to the implantation of emergency overflow tanks (Travassos, 2010). In spite of what was showed by Balazina (2005) about a first movement of naturalization of the Itororó River (under Av. 23 de Maio) and Ipiranga River (by Ricardo Jafet Avenue), the linear parks began to be built along river banks in the periphery (poorer areas of the city) that presented little conflict occupation, but their beds continued to be channeled (Travassos, 2010). However, in the decade of 2010, this policy did not advance, so the implantation of linear parks in the suburbs cooled down and the valley bottom avenues, although in smaller amount, remained in the debate, along with the maintenance of the pipeline and the construction of emergency overflow tanks.

Thus, the inequality of São Paulo’s urban development is also expressed in this relation. The historical service of urban policies did not reache the limits of the urban area, so the rivers channeled in galleries under the road system are located mainly in the area known as Expanded Center and its surroundings, which concentrates the higher income neighborhoods and better urban structure of the city.

In the suburbs, most rivers, streams and floodplains have never received any type of urban treatment and serve as a place of housing for the poorest part of the population. In a survey taken from the 2017 database of the Municipal Housing Department, it is possible to observe that out of 1,698 slums in the city of São Paulo, 848 are totally or partially over riverbanks or on riverbeds, summing up to almost 274,000 households, out of a total of 386,000. In other words, the main current environmental issue of the rivers in São Paulo is where the city is most precarious, and it is a matter of environmental justice (see Acselrad, 2004). There is also an uneven distribution of environmental impacts, which accompanies social inequality. Thus, the poorest population suffers both from social and environmental vulnerability, with fewer chances to organize their agenda and require public action (see figures 01 and 02, respectively).

Figure 01: Itororó Stream, under Avenida 23 de Maio in the Expanded Center, and Caburé Stream, on the outskirts of the North Zone.

   

Credits: Travassos (2014; 2017).

Figure 02: São Paulo rivers map.

 

Credits: Map elaborated by the authors (source of the data: favelas - São Paulo (City), Secretary of Housing, 2017, expanded center - São Paulo (City), Traffic Engineering Company, 2017; Secretary of Urban Development, other data - Laboratory of Urbanism of the Metropolis).

Ecological modernization and urban rivers

According to Janicke (2008), the term ecological modernization was coined in the early 1980’s as an attempt to integrate ecology and economics, responding to the demand for a more environmentally friendly form of development, considering the long term. To do so, it establishes technology and innovation as pillars of sustainability.

One of its early proponents, Hubner (1986), establishes as one of the problems of the contemporary industrial societies the colonization of social and ecological spheres by the sphere of technology. He points out that a social, scientific, technological institutions and market economy restructuring can correct failures of the industrial system. However, this theory proposes a process of hyperindustrialization, which would require new ecologically based technologies, created by enlightened entrepreneurs, their main actors, but with state policies and regulations that support these actions.

Ecological modernization seeks win-win situations, whose main key is the adoption of “correct” technology and socioeconomic policies, pleading for a type of development that happens with nature and not against it (Pow & Neo, 2013). Once ecological modernization has economic viability, the actors and the dynamics of the economy play leading roles in achieving the desired changes. With the extension of the understanding of the environmental issue, from the 1990’s, which associates with the traditional question of the stock of natural resources and the deposit of waste the actors also expand and become more complex, with the growth of environmental movements (Olivieri, 2009).

One of the characteristics of this expanded perception is closely related to cultural changes in daily activities related to places of living, which will inform some understandings about urban sustainability, especially those that establish measures for the quality of life. Although urban sustainability has a strong ethical character and is intimately rooted in the territory (which leads to the conclusion that sustainability criteria should vary with context) the idea of ​​quality of life, as well as ecological modernization, presents a large global dimension. It evens establishes a global market, without, however, being a priori committed with specific social purposes, such as social justice (Olivieri, 2009). Thus, the definition of quality of life of the cities brings together a package formed by questions of security, education, culture, political stability, environment and recreation, dimensions that will configure a specific place for each city in the international arena and at the competition for investments, with little regard to social differences (Pow & Neo, 2013).

In addition, much of the management and governance is give, in accordance with the ecological modernization, through a business logic, including State actions. Such logic advocates a series of changes in urban space, designed to foster local growth and economic development and to improve the city’s place in global competition. On the other hand, Hall & Hubbard (1996) understand that local governments have always used corporate strategies in partnership with the private initiative, to foster local growth and capital accumulation – and this is something that we observe in the case studied here. They state that:

Researchers who have sought to understand entrepreneurial governance from this regime perspective have therefore suggested that such urban coalitions typically consist of loose or informal partnerships of a multiplicity of interest groups which function together in order to make and carry out specific governing decisions (Hall & Hubbard, 1996: 156).

These authors understand that many of these partnerships aim to achieve concrete solutions to specific urban problems by attracting investment to a more prospered city. It is possible to say that many of these urban problems are also considered problems of life quality in the city – this life quality been instituted globally and constructed through speech, echoed in city rankings, elaborated for example by publications as diverse as Monocle or The Economist, or life quality for city boroughs, as can be observed in Brazilian publications such as Exame Magazine or the Folha de São Paulo Newspaper.

However, ecological modernization, and its aspect linked to urban sustainability and life quality, has been criticized for acting in a social vacuum and for treating uncritically technology as a universal good, as it was accessible to all people and places (Pow & Neo, 2013). Especially in developing countries, inequality of income distribution is accompanied by unequal access to technology and, it can be said, to ecological modernization.

As per urban rivers, it is possible to associate the ideas of restoration, recuperation or naturalization^[2] with the ecological modernization, which constitute a new paradigm for the treatment of water bodies and their banks, since it aims to recover the river landscape in the cities. In general, these actions aim to rehabilitate the ecological functions of the system. Although, as per urban rivers, the transformation of their basins with the soil sealing, the production of diffuse pollution and even the change in rainfall patterns, it makes impossible any return to an “original” system (Travassos, 2010). Eden and Tunstall (2006) even note that the ecological or environmental restoration of rivers and streams has been widely studied, especially in the natural sciences, such as ecology, geomorphology and hydrology. Nevertheless, the social and political aspects of these interventions are very little evaluated, being limited to those related to the users’ perception about a certain location after the construction works are done.

Since the 1990’s, ecological actions in urban rivers and streams have been gaining ground in public institutions that deals with river water management in several countries (Travassos, 2010). This is due, in parts, to the growth of sustainability of ecological restoration projects, compared to traditional flood defense projects, which comes from the expansion of the professional categories within the public institutions of drainage management (Adams et al., 2004). The most complex project is known as “daylighting” (Pinkham, 2000), that is, to deculvert rivers, recovering them in several different gradations. In 2005, a massive South Korean daylighting project, the construction of the urban park on the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul, got to the world media, giving strength to this discussion in several countries.

In São Paulo, in spite of the immense inequalities in urban infrastructure between the expanded center and the peripheries, this debate gained strength in this decade, mainly led by urban environmental movements with a strong presence in the media. Thus, rivers formerly channeled into galleries are once again subject of debates, now with the idea of ​​its recovery, which is increasingly incorporated into the public policy debate (although not implemented), in a clear process of ecological modernization without environmental justice. That is, the debate for the recovery of these rivers is not contextualized in the complete understanding about the situation of rivers and streams of the city, because it ignores that its main environmental question today is not gallery channeling. The main environmental issue has to do with social and environmental vulnerabilities combined, i.e. streams occupied by precarious settlements, without sewage collection, in floodable areas, but which, on the other hand, represent opportunities for the construction of a new relationship between the rivers and the city.

Media and power: visibility, scheduling and the environment

The greater penetration of the media in people's daily lives has delineated new forms of sociability that are mediated in and by the media (Thompson, 1995). With the development of the media and its popularization, it has assumed a central role in human relations, serving as the main source of information for happenings and events that occur in other locations, a process that influences the dynamics of State action and the development of public policies (Penteado & Fortunato, 2015).

This process produces important transformations in political and social thoughts. According to Thompson (1995), in democratic societies, the media assumes the role of a public arena for political actions, in which political practices has greater visibility in which different social actors seek to manage their public images and to legitimize their practices. In this sense, the information publicized by the various media ends up being part of the subjects by which the people take notice of the events and influence in the formation of the public opinion. This contributes to the evaluation of the public policies employed.

The greater presence of the media in people’s daily lives produces important changes in social life. The media surpasses its instrumental function of information vehicle, to be present in the most varied human practices – from work to leisure – revealing the impact of communication within the current stage of human development. Thus, information assumes the role of raw material (Castells, 1996) and begins to manage State action (Debray, 1994) and the State’s own legitimacy (Hurrelmann, 2009).

The centrality of the media in contemporary social relations reveals the importance of media not only as a technical apparatus of communication but also as a device for the construction or transmission of the symbolic forms by which people interpret and create meaning for the material world in which they are inserted. This cognitive process is characterized by the mediation of media coverage of happenings and events, producing important social effects that need to be studied (Penteado, 2009).

With the advance of mass communication, especially since the 1970’s, researchers indicate that media effects are more complex, beginning the formation of a new theory: the agenda-setting theory of McCombs and Shaw in Chapel Hill, Columbia University (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). In a recent review and analysis of the trajectory of agenda-setting theory, McCombs, Shaw, & Weaver (2014) have identified that it is possible to observe that the field of research in agenda-setting theory is in constant renewal and updating. This demonstrates its methodological and explanatory efficiency, consolidating itself as an important social research tool. The agenda-setting theory approach is based on the premise that the media selects certain issues and actors and omits others. Thus, this type of coverage ultimately influences the formation of the public agenda, and consequently the public debate, by giving greater space and visibility in its channels to certain specific subjects and actors.

            From the criticisms and improvements of the agenda-setting theory, two approaches were developed: priming and framing. Such approaches seek to show that the effects of the media are not only related to the prominence that the media give to a specific issue, according to agenda-setting. Priming evidences the process of suggestion (induction) that media coverage does in relation to the reported issues, generating influence on the formation of public opinion. Framing is about the way in which an issue is portrayed in media coverage, that is, how an event gains visibility by the media and/or how news will be framed (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007).

For the purpose of this paper, the framing approach is more appropriate, since the urban management of rivers and streams involves technical issues of difficult apprehension for the great majority of the population. The media’s framework on the subject helps to simplify the discussion and it produces “readings” by which individuals will produce their understanding of the issue and form the public opinion about, playing an agency role. Thus, the framing approach allows us to identify the ways in which events are disclosed by the journalistic coverage of the media: what discursive elements gain greater prominence? Which symbolic representations are used? Which interpretations are privileged? Which social actors are heard?

The frameworks produced by the media function as general interpretative milestones that made up from the discursive disputes present in society. These milestones help people to make sense of events and situations transmitted by the media. Scheufele & Tewksbury (2007) indicate that framing operates at the macro and micro levels, serving as a “tool” for the simplification of an often complex subject – such as in the case of rivers and streams channeling – in order to make it more understandable to the audience. However, the use of a framing involves the dispute between political and social interests and stands, which in the case of this study is related to the maintenance of a technological paradigm of intervention and the emergence of a new paradigm structured through the discourse of ecological modernization. Both paradigms seek to normalize the model of spatial and social exclusion existing in the city of São Paulo.

In this sense, the agenda-setting theory identifies that media coverage in relation to São Paulo’s urban rivers and streams does not operate within the discourse of journalistic neutrality. Instead, it stands for political disputes, some forms of state intervention, and a few distinguish standpoints from the actors involved in the theme, highlighting certain events and framing them within cognitive (discursive) schemes that represent specific interests and stands, as an objective to influence public opinion and consequently the public policy agenda, as we try to demonstrate below.

 

Materials and methods

In order to analyze the media coverage of the urban rivers and streams of São Paulo, specifically on the change or maintenance of the channeling paradigm, and to analyze difference in treatment between rivers inside and outside the expanded center area, we gathered data using the search tool from the website of the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo (OESP)^[3]. It was selected because it is the one with the largest circulation in the city of São Paulo^[4].

The period selected for analysis was from January 1^st, 2006 to December 31^st, 2016. The initial date was chosen because in 2006 it was created through an ordinance of the Municipal Green and Environment Department a work group to promote the implementation of linear parks. This can be understood as the moment in which an effective change in the intervention practices began to take place. The year of 2006 was also the year that the South Korean daylighting project was heavily publicized.

In our search, the descriptors used were: streams channeling; streams/rivers recovery; hidden/invisible streams. The newspaper's search tool allowed news containing words close to those to be found in the same search. A total of 201 newspaper articles directly related to the research topic were selected. In these articles we analyzed: (a) date of publication (b) the framing adopted, (c) the geographical reference and (d) the sources used in the reports. Six rankings were used for the news framework:

1.      Paradigm critique: news with criticism of the traditional model of rivers and streams channeling or the proposition of “recovery of rivers” (paradigm of ecological modernization);

2.      Paradigm maintenance: news presenting discourse that reinforces model of rivers and streams channeling;

3.      Flooding: news reports of flood occurrences in various location of the city;

4.      Pollution: news reporting pollution problems in rivers and streams;

5.      Overall picture of the problem: news that seeks to make a general assessment of the issue of rivers and streams;

6.      Others: reports that do not fill into the previous categories.

            The articles were also classified as the location of the rivers or streams portrayed, which could be: (a) inside the expanded center, (b) outside the expanded center and (c) indifferent – category that was used when the news dealt with rivers in the both areas, did not specify the water bodies or reported about those that cross both areas, such as Tietê and Pinheiros Rivers.

In addition, the following sources were identified: NGOs and related organizations (including environmental movements), state public authorities, municipal authorities, specialists (involving technicians, researchers and teachers), population and other sources.

Results

Results show that news with the paradigm maintenance framework had a higher occurrence (50.24%), while critical reports on the channeling paradigm had only 12.93%. These data show that the coverage (framing) of the newspaper still prevails the paradigm of rivers and streams channeling, as shown in table 01.

Table 01: News framings

Framing	%
Paradigm critique	12,93
Paradigm maintenance	50,24
Flooding	15,92
Pollution	6,96
Overall picutre of the problem	6,46
Others	7,46

            Regarding the location of the rivers and streams portrayed in the reports, the results expressed in table 02 show that most of the news studied are related to rivers outside the expanded center (48.25%), that is, regions that concentrate a large part of the city's periphery.

Table 02: Location of the rivers and streams portrayed in the articles.

Location	%
Inside the expanded center	17,91
Outside the expanded center	48,25
Indifferent	33,83

The main sources used in the reports were technicians and managers of the municipal public power (50.24%). These data reveal that the public agents of the bureaucracy (upper and middle directors) are still important sources in the production of speeches and explanations. This, to a certain extent, confirms the results found on the framing, in which these agents tend to have a discourse of paradigm maintenance. Table 03 sets out the data regarding the sources consulted:

                       

Table 03: Sources^[5]                                                                    

Sources	%
NGOs and similar	12,96
State public authorities	17,91
Municipal authorities	50,24
Specialists	13,93
People	26,86
Others	4,97
Sourceless	19,9

            By crossing the framing data with the location (Table 04), it can be seen that the paradigm maintenance framework occurs mainly when it comes to water bodies outside the expanded center, with 67% of the news, versus 15% in the expanded center, following the same news proportion. On the other hand, a deeper reading of the news shows that, whenever the question of precarious settlements is considered, the streams channeling paradigm prevails.

Table 04: Paradigm versus location

Framing	Inside the expanded center (%)	Outside the expanded center (%)	Indifferent (%)
Paradigm critique	38,46	30,76	30,76
Paradigm maintenance	14,85	67,32	17,82
Flooding	0	40,62	59,37
Pollution	0	42,85	57,14
Overall picture of the problem	0	7,69	92,3
Others	73,33	6,66	20

            Regarding the critique of the channeling paradigm of streams, although it appears well distributed between inside and outside the expanded center, it is important to note that a part of the news that critique the paradigm and are located outside the expanded center deal with middle and upper classes boroughs, such as Granja Julieta and Morumbi. It is also emphasized that among the news items framed as indifferent, there are maps that show that the questioning leaves the expanded center, but it does not reach the periphery.

Another important finding is the lack of news about flooding, pollution, and the overall picture of the problem at the expanded center, suggesting that such issues are more relevant outside these areas, which confirms its greater vulnerability. 

Figure 3 shows the crosses between framing and sources data in which the municipal authorities are the most present source when it comes to channeling maintenance and flood news, while the criticism of this paradigm has as its main source NGOs and similar. It is interesting to note that in the greater occurrence of the “overall picture of the problem” framing, the reports do not mention sources, so the journalist assumes the role of expert to evaluate this highly complex issue.

                                                          

Figure 03: Framing versus sources.

Figure 4 illustrates that the paradigm maintenance framing has the highest number of occurrences per year. Exception for the year 2010, due to a series of floods that devastated the city of São Paulo, in which the flooding news were higher.

Figure 04: Framing versus news per year

Finally, the news criticizing the stream channeling paradigm only began to appear in 2009, with peaks in the years of 2012 and 2015. By 2015, the number of news of this nature was very close to the paradigm maintenance, a category that, after 2011, did not present a greater impact in the media. This was probably because it was a period in which the main issue related to water in São Paulo became the lack of water to supply to the population.

 

Final remarks

From the analyzed news, the historical background presented and the theoretical foundation used in this paper, it is possible to conclude that the change of the technological paradigm, from the streams channeling to the recovery of rivers (especially the intervention known as daylighting) still does not present great strength over the news about rivers and streams interventions.

On the other hand, the high incidence of this kind of news linked to NGOs and environmental movements indicates that this agenda must last and it will probably grow in the coming years, mostly due the pressure of these movements on the public agents and the search for greater visibility of their practices.

Regarding the location framed, there is a greater (but not very expressive yet) presence of these critiques in the expanded center and in the regions with good structure, occupied by the middle and upper income classes. This is something close to the hypothesis of the paper: an ecological modernization speech is under construction, which aims to change the presence of water bodies in the city, but it privileges the noble and more valued areas. When it comes to the most precarious and deprived areas, the emphasis remains on the streams channeling of streams and their fallouts.

It is also necessary to emphasize that the small amount of news that deals with the issue of urban rivers and streams in an overall approach (only 6%) indicates that there is no dialogue between urban contexts and different forms of intervention that can respond to the challenges and opportunities of the São Paulo rivers and streams treatments, prevailing a perverse logic that reproduces the privilege of the most noble areas of the city.

At the end, it is worth emphasizing the need for a constant monitoring of news production by the mass media, within an interdisciplinary approach, especially under socio-environmental issues and the forms of management and territory planning in order to consolidate a new research agenda and the construction of a database useful for several researchers of the theme.

 

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[1] Original text: “vai contribuir para que S. Paulo dentro de tres annos, talvez, tenha prompto um dos melhores passeios que uma cidade civilizada pode possuir”.

^[2] There are many terms present in the literature, a list of these terms and their differences can be found in Shields et al. (2003).

^[3] Available at: http://www.estadao.com.br/. 

^[4] Information available at: http://publicidade.estadao.com.br/estadao/estadao-dados-de-mercado/. Source: Ipsos, 2013.

^[5] The total surpasses 100%, since a news item can use more than one source.