Media Discourse and the Marginalization of the Black Population: An Enunciative Analysis

Abstract

This article investigates the discursive production of suspicion toward Black individuals and their consequent social marginalization. From the perspective of Discourse Analysis, the research mobilizes the enunciative approach (Maingueneau, 2013) and the interventional potential of language (Rocha, 2006; 2014). Language is understood as a social practice (Bakhtin, 1995; 1997), historically situated and shaped by power-knowledge relations (Foucault, 2013; 2013a), capable not only of representing but also of actively intervening in reality. In the context of ethnic-racial relations, it is observed that the historical process of subalternization of the Black population is perpetuated by discursive practices aimed at sustaining white privileges (Guimarães, 2006; 2009). To demonstrate this dynamic, the study analyzes a news report from the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo (in dialogue with the study by Paiva, 2015), examining the linguistic marks and meaning effects in the representation of a complaint of racism. The results show that, supported by the pretext of neutrality inherent to the journalistic genre, the media text reproduces hierarchies, mitigates racial violence, and ratifies a political stance aligned with hegemonic groups.