This article the result of a research that considers discoursive actions as foundations for the constitution and maintenance of power relations, for the ability of different social actors to deal with discoursive processess and for the struggle around the privilege of specific types of disourse over others. The central issue is to understand the contributions of the newspaper Zero Hora to the configuration of the public administration field in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The focus is the simbolic construction of the meaning of 'to govern' and 'governor'. After a presentation of the discourse studies field, of the main references adopted and a brief presentation of studies of Zero Hora, we present the methodologica procedures. The cricital analysis of discourse produced by Zero Hora during the coverage of the three last elections for the govern of Rio Grande do Sul, indicates the conception of to govern as an act of conciliation, and the image of governor as a modernizer manager.
Discourse analysis; To govern; Simbolic construction
