A lifetime in 20 lines: representation of death in the Brazilian FPS newspaper

This paper investigates, in the context of biographical narratives in Literary Journalism, the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo obituary section. The research corpus consists of 62 obituaries published since its implementation on October 30, 2007 to December 31 of the same year. Based on the biographical profile of the dead, this analysis seeks to understand coverage about the death from the perspective this nationwide circulation State of São Paulo newspaper. The results suggest a prevalent male profile, over 64 years, formed by professionals from the cities of Rio/São Paulo who contributed in some way to their communities and, in most cases, were victims of heart or cancer diseases. The death of nonagenarians and centenarians transcends these categories, as if the simple fact of surpassing the Brazilian average life expectancy was a new itself.

Journalism; Contemporary narratives; Biographical narratives; Obituaries; Folha de S.Paulo