“Too much land, too little Indians”? A media discourse analysis of Indigenous Lands under the Bolsonaro government in Brazil

Brazil’s development has caused significant damage to the country’s natives and territories. The Constitution of 1988 attempted to repair a historical debt to the Indians by granting them permanent possession of territories essential for their survival. President Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 with the discourse of stopping the demarcation of new Indigenous Lands and expanding exploitative economic activities (e.g. mining and agriculture) in these territories. The government has encountered opposition from the Indigenous Populations, that request that their right to demarcation is respected and report the negative impacts the government’s speech is causing in their lives and territories. The media is an important channel where social actors compete for space and representation. While Central actors –like the government – usually have a privileged position, peripheral actors –such as the Indigenous Populations – fight to get recognition and indirectly influence the political process. This thesis aims to study how Indigenous Lands are displayed in online media during Bolsonaro’s presidency. The purpose is to understand how issues around ILs are framed, examine if and how the media discourse evolved (from 2019 to 2022), and identify the current dominant and underrepresented discourses by performing a qualitative-based Content Analysis of Brazilian media. For this study, 379 articles from two popular online newspapers were analysed. The chosen categories of analysis were Themes, Tones and Actors. The themes were also divided into four subthemes. The results have shown that most articles had a negative tone; the most popular theme was Impacts, and the subtheme was Mining. Lastly, Journalists and Central Actors were the main actors in the discourses. The dominant discourses of the government reinforced the speech of Bolsonaro’s campaign and portrayed Indians as an obstacle to the country's development. The media’s feud towards Bolsonaro has allowed the Indigenous to shift the discourse towards them from savages to a well-organized group within society. Considering that Brazil is going through an election process, this thesis can serve as a source of reflection for the next government to create policies and promote discourses that can ultimately diminish the threats Indigenous populations currently face in the country