Psychiatric reform and media: social representations in the Folha de S. Paulo

摘要

The Brazilian press has been closely tracking the Psychiatric Reform movement, making new concepts and the new language adopted to describe mental illness known with a view to proposing dignified care. The goal of this study is to describe information placed into circulation by Folha de S. Paulo regarding the reform. The theoretical reference is that of social representations. Folha de S. Paulo newspaper CD-ROMS containing editions from 1994 to 1999 were consulted. Theme analysis of the texts was done in order to verify present social representations. Two dichotomized categories ­ transition and maintenance reform ­ arose. The production of such texts unveils groups that create references, recreate concepts, may or may not hide transformation, innovate on political, assistance-related and governmental proposals as well as on planning broad intervention strategies.