O caso Samarco no Jornal Nacional: a exploração do caráter emocional da televisão na cobertura jornalística de um desastre ambiental

This paper intends to understand the strategies used by telejournalism in order to explore the emotional character of television. Its starting point is a reflection by Ferres (1998), for whom the experience of television reception is predominantly influenced by the viewer’s emotions. In order to achieve its objective, the article tries to discover how the three most recurring characters in the telejournalistic narrative – victim, good guy, and villain (Coutinho, 2012) – are activated and built by the production instance to touch the audience. In relation to the theoretical reference, it uses contributions from Charaudeau (2009), Fechine (2008), and Wolton (1996) as well. The objects of analysis are reports from Jornal Nacional (Rede Globo), about the Samarco case, the biggest environmental disaster in Brazil. It concludes that the program emphasizes the role of victims, intending to touch and involve the viewers, and denies attention to fundamental aspects of the news. Keywords: television, telejournalism, emotion, Jornal Nacional, Samarco case.