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Article • Dilemas, Rev. Estud. Conflito Controle Soc. 15 (03) • Sep-Dec 2022 • https://doi.org/10.4322/dilemas.v15n3.46465   copy

The Force of Grace, the Grace of Force: Joking Critique of Figures of ‘Urban Violence’ on the Covers of a Tabloid Newspaper as the ‘Violentization’ of Public Discourse1 1 This article contains findings from the research projects O Moralismo Ostentatório: Um Estudo do Papel da Crítica Acusatorial nos Mundos Público e Privado, financed by CNPq, through a research productivity grant (process 312417/2018-7) and Moralismo Ostentatório e Violência: Um Estudo do Papel da Crítica Acusatorial na 'Violentização' dos Discursos no Rio de Janeiro, financed by Faperj through its Young Scientist of Our State grant (process E26/202.756/2019). I thank the undergraduate students Diogo Grieco and Julia Vilela for their collaboration during the first phase and, in the final phase, Gustavo de Queiroz and Lucas Cardoso Carvalho for their invaluable assistance in collecting and classifying the newspaper cover pages. I also thank the debaters at the 6th International Seminar on Violence and Democracy, especially Maria Stela Grossi Porto, and the reviewers of Dilemas for observations that contributed greatly to the final version of this text. Finally, my thanks to the editors of Meia Hora for providing access to the file of newspaper covers for the research and for their permission to reproduce the material.

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

This article sets out to analyse how a set of social representations of urban violence in Rio de Janeiro is revealed in public humorous critique. The research is based on a study of around 2,400 covers of the tabloid Meia Hora, famous for its comic presentation of the news, which were published between 2011 and 2017, a period corresponding to a routinization established by Rio’s Pacifying Police Units (UPPs). The analysis reveals how the ridicule deployed in humorous critique expresses the social representations of three main figures in the context of Rio de Janeiro’s urban violence: the criminal, the police officer and Rio de Janeiro itself as a social order.

Keywords:
comic; humorous critique; urban violence; ‘Meia Hora’; newspaper; tabloids

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