The Necrobiopolitics of COVID-19 in Brazil: Transitivity Choices in Global Media Representations
Revista de Estudos da Linguagem
; 31(1):146-175, 2023.
Article
in English
| Scopus | ID: covidwho-2252059
ABSTRACT
Global media have reported widely on the (in)actions of the Brazilian federal government, particularly of president Jair Bolsonaro, in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper aims to describe media representations in terms of their transitivity choices (HALLIDAY;MATTHIESSEN, 2004) and to discuss how emerged language patterns may be indicative of particular ways life and death have been controlled in terms of a coupled conceptualization between biopolitics (FOUCAULT, 2008) and necropolitics (MBEMBE, 2019) which we call necrobiopolitics. Overall results indicate how the death of babies and mothers, the collapse of hospital and health service, the spike in hunger, the dismissal of the severity of the pandemic, and the purposeful delay in purchasing vaccines are instrumental in the way president Jair Bolsonaro has implemented a political agenda that defines whose lives are worthy and whose deaths are tolerated. © 2023, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Letras. All rights reserved.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
Scopus
Country/Region as subject:
South America
/
Brazil
Language:
English
Journal:
Revista de Estudos da Linguagem
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
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