This study analyses the construction of public images put forth by four newspapers from Salvador, in the state of Bahia, Brazil, for the different social actors involved in the public debate surrounding the epidemic of occupational intoxication by benzene suffered by workers at the Petrochemical Complex at Camaçari, in the state of Bahia (COPEC), in 1990 and 1991. The study resorts to Symbolic Interactionism, especially to Erving Goffman, one of the most important sociologists of this research perspective, to analyze the discourse of the newspapers, by using the analytical categories of "voices", "arrangement" and "face", as applied to 30% of the journalistic material published during the course of 18 months. The analysis revealed the construction of oscillating, conflicting and docile faces, which result from the variations of the dynamics with which the social actors are presented in the text and operate within the news. They shape different public images for the petrochemical workers, the COPEC employers and the government representatives in the different newspapers.
communication; journalism; discourse analysis; accidents occupational