Historical-Discursive Analysis of the Editorial "1964" in Folha de São Paulo

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the Folha de São Paulo editorial "1964" in the light of the historical-discursive approach (HDA), basing the discussion on the concepts of discourse, media and history, and the historiography of the press and dictatorship. This text, published on March 30, 2014, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the 1964 coup, is part of a broader movement that also includes other newspapers of the mainstream press to reassess and rewrite their history during the period of the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). The methodology used was the eight stages of the HDA and its five central questions. By identifying three dichotomous macro-topics (support for the military dictatorship as a mistake versus support as a long and painful learning process; the regime's violence versus its economic achievements; and the dispute between revolutionary socialism versus the market economy) and the discursive strategies used (predication, argumentation, perspective, intensification, and mitigation), it was possible to observe that the newspaper discursively: (a) makes the problems caused by the military regime invisible; (b) emphasizes the economic growth that the country experienced during the period; and (c) justifies its actions by linking them to the context of the time, which raises questions about the examination of its position. The main conclusions suggest that the ambiguity with which the company positions itself, attenuating its contribution to the military regime and at the same time intensifying its democratic role, makes sense in the light of a contextualized business strategy and should be considered in the discussion about the interfaces between discourse, media and history.

historical-discursive approach; newspaper companies; the past; organizational studies

Resumo

O artigo tem por objetivo analisar o Editorial “1964” da Folha de São Paulo à luz da Abordagem Histórico-Discursiva (AHD), lastreando a discussão nos conceitos de discurso, mídia e história e a historiografia sobre imprensa e ditadura. Este texto, publicado em 30 de março de 2014, às vésperas do aniversário de cinquenta anos do golpe de 1964, se insere em um movimento mais amplo, que engloba também outros jornais da grande imprensa, de reavaliação e reescrita da sua história durante o período da ditadura militar brasileira (1964-1985). A metodologia empregou os oito estágios da AHD e suas cinco questões centrais. A partir da identificação de três macrotópicos dicotômicos (apoio à ditadura militar como erro versus apoio como longo e doloroso aprendizado; violências do regime versus realizações econômicas; e disputa entre socialismo revolucionário versus economia de mercado) e das estratégias discursivas utilizadas (predicação, argumentação, perspectiva, intensificação e mitigação), foi possível observar que o jornal discursivamente: a) invisibiliza os problemas causados pelo regime militar; b) enfatiza o crescimento econômico vivenciado pelo país no período e; c) justifica suas ações atrelando-as ao contexto da época, o que levanta questionamentos sobre o exame de sua posição. As principais conclusões sugerem que a ambiguidade com que a empresa se posiciona, de atenuação de sua contribuição para o regime militar e, ao tempo, de intensificação do seu papel democrático, faz sentido à luz da estratégia empresarial contextualizada e que deve ser considerada na discussão sobre as interfaces entre discurso, mídia e história.

abordagem histórico-discursiva; empresas jornalísticas; passado; estudos organizacionais

Introduction

Proposing not to remember is like proposing not to perceive a smell, for memory, like a smell, affects, even when it is not invoked. ( Sarlo, 2007 , p. 10)

Studies dealing with the relationship between language and organizations began in the 1980s ( Westwood & Linstead, 2001 ) when researchers stopped treating language as a mere communication mechanism and began to observe it as an internalizer of meanings and also as a means of representing organizations. Since then, language has come to be understood as an instrument of organizations because of its ability to structure our thoughts about the world and produce our reality ( Chia & King, 2001) . In other words, discourse is the central means by which members of an organization create a social reality capable of shaping our sense of who they are, but not only that, considering that organizations are not isolated from the society in which they are embedded ( Van Dijk, 1997) .

Among the many possible ways to address discursive aspects, critical discourse analysis (CDA), the approach adopted in this article, stands out because it goes "beyond how and why discourse cumulatively contributes to the reproduction of macro-structures and highlights the traces of cultural and ideological meaning" ( Ramanathan & Hoon, 2015 , p. 57). The analysis of linguistic structures cannot be the only element in CDA since "although linguistic knowledge is essential for a theory of discourse, it is a mistake (...) to believe that discursive problems can be accessed by projecting linguistic knowledge onto social contexts" ( Santander Molina, 2009, p , p. 196).

In this discussion, Wodak (2009) defends the historical-discursive approach (HDA) as a particular analytical lens of CDA for organizational research. This approach provides a tool capable of analyzing the phenomenon of power by integrating and triangulating historical sources and antecedents from the social and political fields in which discursive events are embedded ( Wodak, 2009 ). The HDA allows us to take the perspective that the relationships established between companies and governments, for example, are not free of ideological positions, in line with different fields of knowledge in administration that problematize this assumption, such as the fields of business and human rights, corporate social responsibility, and corporate historical responsibility ( Barros, 2018 ; Costa & Silva, 2018 ; Schrempf-Stirling, Palazzo & Phillips, 2016).

In this scenario, historical research in organizational studies emerges as one of the possible ways to identify and problematize this relationship between companies and governments. This is because organizational research in this vein draws extensively on historical sources, methods, and knowledge to better understand organizations in their socio-historical contexts, providing alternative perspectives to hegemonic narratives (Maclean, Harvey & Clegg, 2016). Historical research in organizational studies can inform critique by denaturalizing organizations while rewriting their past, problematizing their origins, and showing that starting points are not natural but culturally constructed over time (Costa, Barros & Martins, 2010; Durepos, Shaffner & Taylor, 2021). Thus, historical organizational studies understand organizations within their socio-historical context in order to develop historically informed theoretical narratives that are attentive to changing interpretations of meaning over time (Decker, Hassard & Rowlinson, 2021; Maclean, Harvey & Clegg, 2016).

In the specific case of journalistic enterprises, this relationship is further amplified since, in the exercise of their informative activity, they produce meaning with the aim of influencing others ( Fiorin, 2006 , p. 74). In this way, the language of the media, in particular, is studied as a place of power, of struggle, where "language is apparently transparent" (Wodak, 2001a, p. 6). According to the author, media institutions often present themselves as neutral, providing space for public discourse that disinterestedly reflects the state of affairs, which is understood as a fallacy and presents the relevance of the HDA to uncover the mediation and construction of the media. In Brazil, an interesting example of the relationship between journalistic corporations and the government is the role of the mainstream newspapers in overthrowing of President João Goulart in the 1964 coup d'état. The Brazilian mainstream press collaborated in destabilizing Goulart's government by suggesting that removing him from power would restore order and protect the country from the subversion of values, which culminated in the military takeover that led to more than twenty years of dictatorship in the country ( Biroli, 2009 ; Santos & Costa, 2019 ; 2021).

More recently, in an attempt to reconstruct the history of the coup and the Brazilian military dictatorship, some newspapers in the mainstream press have published stories narrating this history and assuming their role as a way for the newspapers to expose their interpretations of the period and choose what and who should be included in this history ( Carvalho, 2015 ). As a result of the 50^th anniversary of the 1964 coup, Brazilian society as a whole seemed to be experiencing a "memorial fever" around the military dictatorship ( Napolitano, 2015 ). The newspaper O Globo , for example, issued a retraction in an editorial published on August 31, 2013, entitled "Editorial support for the coup of '64 was a mistake" ( O Globo , 08/31/2013). Folha de São Paulo , for its part, recounted what the period was like and how it positioned itself through the editorial "1964," published on March 30, 2014, admitting that "supporting the military dictatorship was a mistake" ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014). The newspaper Estado de São Paulo published the editorial "Half a century later," stating that from the second Institutional Act (AI-2), the civilian component of the movement diminished and it became "essentially military." The newspaper also noted that the authoritarianism began there ( O Estado de S. Paulo , 03/31/2014).

Marques, Mont'Alverne, and Mitozo (2018) point out that editorials are written by professionals appointed by the newspaper's management to represent the company's views. In this way, an editorial gives the newspaper greater freedom to express its political and ideological orientation ( Bowie, 2019) . Napolitano (2015, p , p. 15) adds that the "media¹ historically has greater legitimacy and argumentative sophistication in the production of memories about a historical period, so its arguments resonate in a more simplified way." Thus, in order to contribute to the understanding that newspapers help construct narratives by elaborating different meanings about specific events, and bearing in mind that the HDA argues that discourses change over time, considering socio-political metamorphoses, this article aims to analyze the editorial "1964" in Folha de S. Paulo from the historical-discursive approach. The aim is not to reconstruct Folha's historical account but to identify the discursive mechanisms used by the newspaper to revisit its past.

The relevance of this research lies primarily in three aspects. First, problematizing the ideological positioning of companies allows us to unveil the fictitious relationship of neutrality between them and the political moment they are living through, and to reflect on their role in the country's political trajectory. Given that politics is understood as a sphere that has integrated the media and that, at the same time, its operations are increasingly carried out through the media, the second aspect refers to the problematization of the political-discursive performance of journalistic companies ( Wodak & Forchtner, 2017 ). This is because, as the media produces and reproduces ideologies and histories, and newspapers engage in a series of specific strategies designed to attract the attention of readers, it positions itself as a political actor, that is, as a potent tool of domination that influences society in all its dimensions ( Martin & Wodak, 2003 ; Capelato, 2014) . Finally, this research contributes to organizational studies by defending the HDA as a potential theoretical methodology for historical organizational studies (Decker, Hassard & Rowlinson, 2021) and for historical management research that employs critical discourse analysis to analyze different sources, as it is an approach that assumes the centrality of context ( Wodak, 2009 ; Wodak, Kwon & Clarke, 2011).

To achieve this goal, this article is divided into four parts: first, we present the concepts of discourse, media, and history raised by the HDA. Then, we review the historical context of the 1964 coup, the period that the editorial analyzed narrates, considering the participation of the press. Next, we present the methodological procedures adopted to carry out the research. Finally, we analyze the editorial using the methodological framework of the historical-discursive approach, followed by the final considerations.

Discourse, media and history

Van Dijk (1997 , p. 25) defines discourse as actions taken intentionally to provoke other actions, events, situations, or states of mind. It thus serves as a "means by which ideologies are persuasively communicated in society and thus helps to reproduce the power and domination of specific groups or classes." In this sense, power becomes visible when different narratives of the past are confronted with each other and the elites choose one of the competing narratives and naturalize it as the past ( Martin & Wodak, 2003 ).

The historical-discursive approach (HDA), committed to critical discourse analysis (CDA), adheres to the socio-philosophical orientation of critical theory, following a complex concept of social critique that includes the dimension of action (Wodak, 2001b) and a strong emphasis on historical analysis ( Wodak & Meyer, 2009 ). Developed by the linguist Ruth Wodak to analyze political institutions and organizations, the HDA considers the interdiscursive relationships between utterances, texts, and discourses, as well as extralinguistic variables such as an organization's history and its situational frameworks (Clarke, Kwon & Wodak, 2011). While focusing on these levels of meaning, it seeks to explore how discourses are transformed in relation to socio-political change, providing researchers with an approach to examine text and context in greater depth.

One of the most prominent features of the historical-discursive approach is its effort to work with interdisciplinarity ( Wodak, 2015 ). This approach combines qualitative discourse analysis with the analysis of the structural context of the organization and the respective history of specific practices (Wodak, Kwon & Clarke, 2011). This is because the history of nations, people, and groups is not a given fact but something continuously and discursively constructed ( Bourdieu, 2011) in the media by politicians in their speeches at essential events, administrators, and individuals telling their own life stories.

From the perspective of the HDA, ideology is defined as "an (often) one-sided perspective or [as a] worldview composed of mental representations, convictions, related opinions, attitudes, and evaluations" ( Wodak, 2015 , p. 3). The author reinforces that ideologies are shared by members of particular social groups and serve as an important means of establishing and maintaining unequal relationships through discourse. Thus, discourse is understood as a set of context-dependent semiotic practices situated within specific fields of social action and are socially constituted and constitutive ( Wodak, 2009) .

The journalistic field, established in the 19^th century, imposes on the various fields of cultural production "a set of effects that are linked, in their form and effectiveness, to its structure, that is, to the distribution of the various newspapers and journalists according to their autonomy about external forces, those of the readers' market and those of the advertisers' market" ( Bourdieu, 1997 , p. 102). It is a segment with intense interfaces:

it is straightforward, in fact, that the various powers, and in particular government bodies, act not only because of the economic pressures they are able to exert, but also because of all the pressures made possible by the monopoly of legitimate information, especially from the official sources ; on the one hand, this monopoly gives the public authorities and the administration, for example the police, but also the legal, scientific, etc. authorities, weapons in their fight against journalists, in which they try to manipulate the information or the agents in charge of transmitting it, while the press, for its part, tries to manipulate the holders of the information in order to obtain it and ensure its exclusivity; without forgetting the exceptional symbolic power given to the state authorities by their ability to define, through their actions, decisions and interventions in the journalistic field (interviews, press conferences, etc.), the order of the day and the hierarchy of events imposed on the newspapers. ( Bourdieu, 1997 , p. 103, emphasis added)

The media constructs stories and uses strategies designed to attract readers' attention, producing and reproducing ideologies and beliefs, making it a powerful tool of domination that influences the world in all its dimensions ( Martin & Wodak, 2003 ). If, on the one hand, the media involves a "type of discursive production committed to an economic circuit driven by obtaining and maintaining the maximum audience, on the other hand it is embedded in a historical-cultural context of interaction between individuals and between them and the social space of which they are part" ( Lysardo-Dias, 2006, p , p. 29). O'Keefe (2012, p. 441) points out that "media discourse refers to interactions that take place through a broadcast platform, whether spoken or written, in which the discourse is directed toward a non-present reader, listener, or viewer," a process that goes far beyond the enunciator-enunciate format of the message.

Media organizations often claim to be neutral because they provide a space for public discourse, but despite this presumption, like any other organization, they are not exempt from political positioning, even if it is expressed in a more or less explicit way ( Calfano, 2019 ). This is because some positions are more explicit than others when it comes to journalistic discourse. For Bourdieu (1998 , p. 95), "the journalistic field produces and imposes a very particular vision of the political field, a vision that is grounded in the very structure of the journalistic field and in the personal interest of the journalists who are engendered there." In any case, as Lysardo-Dias (2006 , p. 31) points out, media products are based on "a single principle: to bring together the producer and the receiver in such a way that the latter identifies with the former and can access and accept what is proposed to it."

Politics and the media are two fields that are somewhat interdependent and increasingly intertwined in complex ways and with profound implications for each other ( Wodak, 2009 ). Not only are these relationships complex, but there are still no clear answers as to who influences whom and how these influences are directed. However, the media is becoming increasingly global, facilitating the formation of trends and opinions on a large scale. In this sense, the role of the media in producing and reproducing specific constructions of everyday politics needs to be closely examined since media language is understood as a place of power, of struggle, where language is apparently transparent (Wodak, 2001a).

From a linguistic point of view, this process can involve various discursive strategies of ideological persuasion since, strictly speaking, even with the specificities of the media, media discourse is first and foremost a discourse and therefore aims at influencing others. "When a speaker reproduces elements of the dominant discursive formation in his discourse, he contributes in a certain way to reinforcing the structures of domination" ( Fiorin, 2006 , p. 74). In the specific context of the Brazilian dictatorship, if a mainstream media outlet ended up producing explicit discourses that emphasized the "economic miracle" and remained silent about human rights violations, for example, it undeniably supported and contributed to reinforcing the authoritarianism of the period.

In order for the past to unfold discursively and serve the interests of these organizations in the present, the narratives they use are usually emotionally appealing and instrumental, and are not necessarily accurate (Decker, Rowlinson & Hassard, 2021; Ybema, 2014) , because between "capturing the facts in situ and their public representation in a newspaper, there is a process of transformation of the source information linked to the specificity of the journalistic enterprise and its particular environment, since the information only makes sense within a psychosocial system" ( Emediato, 2005, p , p. 106, emphasis added). "To speak of the media is to speak above all of the circularity of discourses through which individuals act as historical subjects and participate in different types of cultural production" ( Lysardo-Dias, 2006, p , p. 25). The media discourse is thus influenced by the interests of the company itself and by contextual aspects, resulting in a constant transformation of the facts.

In the study of historical, organizational, and political topics and texts, the historical-discursive approach attempts to "integrate a large amount of available knowledge about historical sources and the antecedents of the social and political fields in which discursive 'events' are embedded" (Wodak, 2001b, p. 65). The HDA analyzes the historical dimension of discursive actions by exploring how specific discourse genres are subject to diachronic change ( Wodak, 2015) . The most important thing about this approach is that it is not just seen as information, but integrates social theories to explain the so-called context (Wodak, 2001b). Therefore, the next section will deal with the historiography of the press during the 1964 coup.

Methodology

This research analyzes the editorial "1964" in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo , published on March 30, 2014, the content of which is available to the public on the company's website² . The retraction editorial of the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo was chosen because it is considered an important representative of the Brazilian mainstream press at the time ( Capelato, 2014) , and also because its relationship with the military regime had already been the focus of previous research. This is because by supporting the coup d'état in 1964, Folha de S. Paulo aligned itself with a large part of the national business community, which saw João Goulart's government as far left and heading towards communism (Dias, 2013; Capelato, 2014 ; Santos & Costa, 2019 ; 2021; 2022), and also maintained essencial links with the new government in power, as the government advertised in Folha de S. Paulo even more intensely than in other media outlets. Folha de S. Paulo also collaborated in the installation and maintenance of the civil-military dictatorship and its repressive methods ( Dias, 2012) . This collaboration is cited in volume 3 of the CNV Report: "The agents of repression put an army jeep on the street, apparently with problems, and around it, in a van of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo , were hidden DOI-CODI/SP agents carrying machine guns" ( Dias et al., 2014, p , p. 735).

Moreover, in line with researchers who work with the press as an object of study and its editorials as expressions of its political and/or ideological orientation ( Luca, 2006 ; Capelato & Prado, 1980 ), this research assumes that it is possible to observe Folha de S. Paulo's position based on the editorial analyzed. Mont'Alverne and Marques (2015, p. 122) add that in Brazil, "there are still few studies dedicated to specifically examining the function and political influence of journalistic editorials – even though this is precisely a space capable of revealing unique features of the relationship between journalistic companies and agents in the political field." Perlatto (2019, p , p. 84) adds that editorials "most often (...) address issues that have gained prominence and visibility in the public sphere at the very moment the article is written." Thus, through this editorial, it is possible to understand Folha de S. Paulo's interest and how it was communicated to readers.

The historical-discursive approach was used to analyze the document selected as a source. Reisigl and Wodak (2008) point out that this complete approach ideally follows an eight-stage program, as shown in Table 1 . The authors point out that the eight stages are usually implemented sequentially.

Table 1
: Eight-stage HDA program

Stages	Implementation
Stage 1	Consultation of previous theoretical knowledge (collection, reading and discussion of previous research).
Stage 2	Systematic collection of data and contextual information.
Stage 3	Selection and preparation of data for specific analyses.
Stage 4	Specification of the research question and formulation of assumptions (based on a literature review and a first reading of the data).
Stage 5	Qualitative pilot analysis (which allows categories and initial assumptions to be evaluated).
Stage 6	Detailed case study (of a whole range of data).
Stage 7	Formulation of the critique (interpretation of the results, taking into account knowledge of the context and the critique).
Stage 8	Application of detailed analytical results (if possible, the results can be applied or proposed for application).

Reisigl and Wodak (2008)

Stages 1 and 2 were carried out using a prior bibliographical and historiographical search that integrated the available information on the historical context of the discursive event analyzed, resulting in the construction of the chapter "The Press and the 1964 Coup." In addition, the historical dimension of the discursive act is addressed by historically exploring how media discourses are subject to diachronic change. About stage 3, the editorial "1964" was selected because it was published on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the coup and because the newspaper retracted its support for the coup and the subsequent civil-military dictatorship. Stage 4 – formulating the research question – was prepared in advance because the researchers were interested in understanding how newspaper companies discursively construct - in the present - their past. The text was then scrutinized to identify the macro-topics that would emerge from the text, as described in step 5. Stage 6 consisted of gaining a deeper understanding of the context in which the selected text was written. It was also possible to go through stages 7 and 8 by critically interpreting the analyzed source.

Wodak (2015) points out that discourse analysis in this approach requires analyzing the text's coherence by identifying related macro-topics and understanding the objective of the producer of the text. To carry out this investigation, after understanding the context, Reisigl and Wodak (2008) present five central questions for the HDA, as shown in Table 2 .

Table 2
: Key questions in HDA research

1	How are people, objects, events, processes, and actions named and referred to linguistically?
2	What characteristics and qualities are attributed to social actors, objects, events, and processes?
3	What arguments are used in this discourse?
4	From what perspective are these designations, attributions, and arguments expressed?
5	Are the respective statements openly articulated, intensified, or toned down?

Reisigl and Wodak (2008)

This research sought to answer these five questions: first, by identifying how social actors (presidents, the military, businesspeople, among others), social events, and political changes were named by this editorial; second, by observing what characteristics and evaluations the editorial made about these actors, events, and changes; third, by recognizing the arguments the newspaper used to make these evaluations; fourth, by looking at the perspectives from which these arguments are expressed and to which other discourses they are connected; and finally, by identifying whether these discourses were intensified or weakened throughout the text.

Reisigl and Wodak (2008 , p. 94) elaborated five types of discursive strategies for research based on these five questions. By strategy, the authors mean a "more or less intentional plan of practices (including discursive practices) embraced to achieve a particular social, political, psychological, or linguistic goal." Wodak (2009) adds that he is interested in these five types of discursive strategies because they underpin the justification/legitimization of inclusion/exclusion and the construction of identities, as presented in Table 3 .

Table 3
: Discursive strategies

Discursive strategies	Devices
Referential or naming strategies	These are the strategies by which actors are constructed and represented. This is done through a series of categorization devices, including metaphors and metonymies.
Predication strategies	Where social actors such as individuals, group members, or groups as a whole are linguistically characterized by means of predications. Predication strategies can be realized, for example, as evaluative attributions of negative and positive traits in implicit or explicit linguistic form. These strategies aim to label social actors in a more or less positive or negative way and are therefore closely related to naming strategies.
Argumentation strategies	Argumentation strategies and a background of generic themes are analyzed through the way in which positive and negative attributions are justified. For example, it could be suggested that the social inclusion or exclusion of people or policies is legitimate.
Perspective or framing representation strategy	This analyzes the discourse through which speakers express their involvement in discourse and position their point of view in reporting, narrating, or citing relevant events or statements.
Intensification strategies vs. mitigation strategies	Both help to qualify and modify the epistemic status of a proposition, intensifying or mitigating the illocutionary force of statements.

Wodak (2009)

Thus, after understanding the context of the editorial's production and seeking answers to the five key HDA research questions, this research sought to identify which of the discursive strategies presented above were used by Folha de S. Paulo's "1964" editorial, which will be done in the section analyzing the editorial.

The press and the 1964 coup

The 1964 coup and the subsequent installation of the dictatorial government are marked by various historiographies that point to different perspectives on this political event in Brazil ( Napolitano, 2011 ). The line adopted in this research emphasizes the business-military conspiracy that aimed to conquer the state, pointing to the role of the articulation between the right, based on the Brazilian business community that involved the military, and the US government, resulting in the removal of the then president João Goulart ( Dreifuss, 1981 ; Napolitano, 2011 ; Silva, 2018 ).

To understand the coup, let us take a step back and look at the preceding scenario. The political context of João Goulart's government (1961-1964) was particular: agrarian reform was underway, affecting production and incomes in the countryside; urban reform was disrupting the unregulated growth of the cities; banking reform provided for a new financial structure under state control; and electoral reform could change the political balance by giving the vote to illiterate people ( Schwarcz & Starling, 2015) . The economic context was high inflation, devalued wages, and rising living costs. There was also a crisis in the press sector due to rising paper costs when several changes were made to the press production process ( Abreu, 2005) .

João Goulart was the principal political heir of Getúlio Vargas and president of the Brazilian Workers' Party (PTB), after being Vargas' Minister of Labor (1953-1954). His actions during this period marked him as a politician with leftist ideological tendencies, as an agitator who promoted strikes and the participation of leftist and communist leaders in the unions, and who was identified by part of the Brazilian political elite as incapable of governing the country ( Abreu, 2005) . Historians agree that during this period, most of the country's newspapers favored removing João Goulart from office, thus favoring the coup. The focus of the newspapers was to show that by removing him, the order would be restored, and the country would be saved from communism, the subversion of values, and an alleged leftist dictatorship ( Biroli, 2009 ; Santos & Costa, 2019 ; 2021).

Alongside the military, businesspeople joined the conservative coalition that led the movement to oust the constitutional president ( Diniz, 1994 ). The business-military nature of this coup alliance was in the interest of preserving the capitalist order in the country in the face of perceived communist threats and adapting the state system to the dynamics of world capitalism ( Lemos, 2016 ). In general, the mainstream press opposed the mass mobilizations and the fundamental reforms proposed by Goulart, such as land reform and military unionization ( Abreu, 2005 ). This panorama shows that despite the role of the press as a mouthpiece for the people, it is a "social and political actor, but with an economic bias that determines its objectives and goals, seeking financial gains to increase revenues" ( Santos, 2019 , p. 69).

According to Abreu (2005) , the series of strikes, the intense criticism of the government's economic policies, the mobilization of left and right-wing groups, and the sergeants' revolt led to a climate of significant political and economic instability in the country. The newspapers, which until then had defended the maintenance of the constitutional regime, began to call for the intervention of the armed forces and intensified news of the "communization" of the country ( Abreu, 2005 ). General Castello Branco's inauguration was the

prelude to a complete change in the political system, shaped by active collaboration between the military and civilian sectors interested in implementing a modernization project driven by industrialization and economic growth, and supported by an openly dictatorial format. ( Schwarcz & Starling, 2015 , p. 449)

After the 1964 coup, Brazil's civil-military dictatorship went hand in hand with the process of modernizing the country's mainstream press ( Abreu, 2005 ; Dias, 2012) , in which the military government took on the role of an important ally, both as a financier of credit lines and as the leading advertiser. However, it was not a one-way relationship: "the idea of a 'modernization' of the press was fundamental as a political-ideological strategy of the military to guarantee a situation of national security" ( Dias, 2012, p , p. 45). Thus, the press worked hard to propagate "national" and "democratic" precepts, to establish "order" and "legality," and was a crucial player in the fight against the specter of communism.

In this way, it is possible to see that the role of the press as a supporter of the 1964 coup is portrayed in much of the historiography of the Brazilian press. However, this support did not always occur in a homogeneous, simultaneous and convergent way among the different newspapers of the time ( Carvalho, 2015 ). After the coup, newspapers were influenced by the state, both financially (with benefits or official advertising) and through threats or coercive measures. When the military regime "adopted measures to curb the press and attacked traditional liberal values (opinion, demonstration, individual guarantees), the majority of newspapers were displeased" ( Motta, 2013 , p. 68).

In his periodization, Napolitano (2015) recalls four phases of historical constructions and reconstructions of the dictatorial period. For the author, the first phase (1964-1974) is marked by the experiences that served as the basis for later reconstructions in the field of memory, such as the coup, censorship, and post-AI-5 repressive methods. The second phase (1974-1994) is what he calls the phase of critical memory construction, as a result of "a complex and multifaceted process of revision and construction of new meanings for the experiences of the previous period by the protagonists and analysts" ( Napolitano, 2015 , p. 21). In the mid-1970s, for example, an opposition publishing movement emerged with "books by opposition parliamentarians, testimonies by exiles and former political prisoners, reportage books and novels, memoirs and other works denouncing the government" ( Bauer, 2022, p , p. 235). At the end of the 1970s, social groups mobilized to reflect, rethink, and take responsibility for the violence perpetrated by the dictatorship, with a series of initiatives to build social knowledge about state terrorism, confronting the regime's denialism and silencing ( Bauer, 2022) .

The debate on these issues only occurred because of the political and social changes that made it possible. The beginning of the Geisel government (1974-1979) and its promises of liberalization were linked to the perception of these groups that the country had entered a spiral of violence, dragging down all political actors and civil society ( Napolitano, 2015 ). At the end of the 1980s, the National Constituent Assembly was established, opening up space for the discussion of issues concerning the dictatorship and state terrorism, especially "when sections of the constitution were discussed that could mark a break with the previous dictatorial order" ( Bauer, 2022 , p. 235).

The third phase (1995-2004) is understood as a period in which this critical hegemonic memory influenced the policies of the post-dictatorship Brazilian state. From the 1990s onwards, the state began to develop a memory policy, "albeit timid, sporadic and somewhat disjointed, based on the memory of the victims of the regime's violence, which became more explicit and standardized after 1995" ( Napolitano, 2015, p , p. 25). Also, according to the author, from this moment on, the state pursued a policy of reparation and recovery of the life stories of the victims of the military regime's violence, while at the same time promoting institutional and symbolic actions located in the field of hegemonic memory critical of the dictatorship.

The fourth and final phase (2003-2014) of social memory of the military regime is identified by the author as one of the richest and most complex, characterized by ideological and historiographical revisionism. Coinciding with the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, Napolitano (2015) highlights two dichotomous movements: on the one hand, the state's memory policy, based on hegemonic memory critical of the military regime; and on the other, the growth of revisionism in civil society, in some cases shared by recognized historians with a progressive bias. It should be noted that social memory studies can be understood as a field of research that discusses how the past is remembered and continues to influence the present ( Foroughi, 2020 ). According to the author, these memories are shaped and sustained by various cultural practices or mnemonic products such as stories, monuments, and memorials used to maintain a version of the past.

In this context, the National Truth Commission (CNV) was set up in 2012. Its mission was to clarify "still obscure facts, mainly related to political repression against opponents, and to produce a kind of official history of the period from the perspective of a battered democracy" ( Napolitano, 2015 , p. 25). While investigating the perpetrators of these violations, it sought to identify the structures of the dictatorial regime, such as its political, corporate, and financial institutions ( Costa & Silva, 2018) . In December 2014, the extensive report drawn up by this commission was published, pointing to a series of symbolic actions that "signal the triumph of critical hegemonic memory at the level of official discourse, although its results did not fully satisfy the most militant human rights organizations" ( Napolitano, 2015, p , p. 25).

It is no coincidence that the newspapers were starting this mea culpa movement at this time. After the whole process of democratic reopening, the discussion around the National Constituent Assembly and, more recently, the creation of the National Truth Commission in search of accountability for the acts, crimes, support and collaboration with the dictatorial regime shows a social demand made on the newspapers: that companies take a stand against their collaborationist past. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1964 coup, Napolitano (2015) points out that Brazilian society seemed to be experiencing a "memorial fever" around the military regime, including the newspaper companies, which, faced with this changing context, adapted their discourse to new social demands.

Analysis of the editorial “1964”

The editorial "1964" was published on March 30, 2014, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the coup. During this period, in the government of Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), the National Truth Commission (CNV) was investigating crimes and human rights violations, with a focus on the 21 years of the Brazilian dictatorship (1964-1985), according to Costa and Silva (2018) . The CNV, created by Law 12,528/2011 and established on May 16, 2012, published its Final Report in December 2014, triggering a series of debates involving different sectors of society. These debates broadened the discussions about the relationship between the dictatorship and the business community, which can also be understood as an offshoot of the process of opening up the archives about the repression, which had been kept secret until then ( Estevez & Bandeira, 2014) . On this occasion, the newspapers sought to justify their past actions, as Folha de S. Paulo in the editorial analyzed.

The study of this editorial identified three dichotomous macro-topics: 1) support for the military dictatorship as a mistake versus support as a long and painful learning process, 2) the regime's violence versus its economic achievements, and 3) the dispute between two models of society: revolutionary socialism versus the market economy. By analyzing them, it was possible to see that the newspaper used discursive strategies of predication, argumentation, perspective, intensification, and mitigation in this reconstruction of the past in order to: a) make the problems caused by the military regime invisible; b) emphasize the economic growth the country experienced during the period; and c) justify its actions by linking them to the context of the time, as will be discussed below. In order to provide a broader understanding of the analysis carried out, all the excerpts from the editorial will be presented, grouped according to the macro-topics highlighted.

Support for the military dictatorship as a mistake versus a long and painful learning experience

This Folha is sometimes accused of having supported the dictatorship in the first half of its term, only to become one of the most critical outlets in the following half. There is no doubt that, from today's perspective, that support was a mistake. ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014)

The newspaper begins the editorial by describing the decision made due to adverse conditions: "From today's perspective, supporting the military dictatorship was a mistake , but the choices made then were made in much more adverse conditions than today." The newspaper explicitly limits its support only to the first half of the regime, creating an interdiscourse of combativeness since it considers that in the second half, it acted as "one of the most critical outlets." It thus presents strategies of intensification of the context of oppression, which suggests that there are few alternatives for action other than the support that the company showed at the time and of mitigation as a way of erasing the choice to support the dictatorship, at least for part of the period. This discursive strategy minimizes the business-military rapprochement that triggered the coup ( Lemos, 2016) by, for example, hiding the gains that companies associated with the military government had at the time ( Dreifuss, 1981) , a convenient and conniving silence. As can be seen in the following excerpt, Folha argues that it acted "as seemed best or inevitable in those circumstances":

This newspaper should have rejected all violence, on both sides, and remained an uncompromising defender of democracy and individual freedoms. However, it is easy now to condemn those responsible for the choices of those times, which were made in conditions that were so much more adverse and distressing than those of today. They acted as seemed best or inevitable in those circumstances. ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014)

In this excerpt, Folha de S. Paulo argues that it is now easy to "condemn those responsible for the choices of those times," referring to the accusations against the company. Once again, it uses strategies of mitigation and intensification: mitigation by stating that supporting the dictatorship was a mistake – but only from today's perspective; intensification by explaining that the adverse conditions that led it to act were inevitable. Considering that Folha supported the coup, collaborated with the military regime, but was identified as a newspaper of resistance and a mouthpiece for civil society in the period of redemocratization ( Dias, 2012) , the editorial highlights this discussion by producing a discourse that, despite this one-off support, it is "a newspaper at the service of the country." It should be noted that the newspaper has used this slogan since 1961. However, in its editorial "Democracy, never less," published on June 28, 2020, the newspaper announced that it would temporarily adopt the slogan “a newspaper at the service of democracy" until the next presidential elections, given its criticism of the last government. The newspaper claims to seek "inspiration in its historical role in Diretas Já to rescue the color yellow as a symbol of democracy" ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/28/2020). The newspaper returned to its traditional slogan after the 2022 elections in which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected. However, throughout the editorial, the newspaper's collaboration with the dictatorial regime, including lending its fleet of cars to agents of repression ( Dias et al., 2014) , is not highlighted. On the other hand, it tells the story of learning from the past, as can be seen in the following excerpt:

Seen in perspective, the period was a long and painful learning experience for all those who work in the public space until they reached their current maturity in common respect for the rules and in the renunciation of violence as a means of fighting for ideas. May it continue to be like this. ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014)

The editorial uses the strategy of perspective to show how Folha de S. Paulo sees this past as a "long and painful learning experience " that brought it to maturity, adding "may it continue to be like this." In this reconstruction of the past, at the same time as it discursively silences and minimizes the effects caused by the military rulers during the years of dictatorship, it learns from them as an organization at the service of society. But at what cost? The editorial associates military mistakes with the potential for economic growth "made possible" by the regime, a common subterfuge among supporters of the dictatorship, as will be seen below.

Regime violence versus economic achievements

The military regime (1964-1985) has been the target of well-deserved and widespread disapproval. The consolidation of democracy over the last three decades has made the violence that the dictatorship represented even more notorious. Violence against the population, which was deprived of its fundamental right to self-government. Moreover violence against opponents who were persecuted for merely expressing an opinion, if not illegally imprisoned and tortured, especially during the period when the guerrillas were being fought, between 1969 and 1974. ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014)

In the excerpt above, the newspaper presents the military regime as a deserving target of rejection. To do so, it emphasizes the aspect of violence exercised by the dictatorial regime. In order to emphasize its rejection of the dictatorial government's actions, the newspaper uses the term violence three times in the same paragraph: "notorious violence," "violence against the population," and "violence against opponents." In this way, the newspaper uses the strategy of predication to evaluate the period as deserving repulsion. However, despite taking a stance in the editorial against the violence perpetrated by the government during the period, Folha does not apologize for its collaborative links – at the time – with agents of repression ( Dias et al., 2014) . At the same time, it uses the argumentative strategy of claiming that in the case of the economy , there was no regression during the dictatorship:

This does not mean that all criticism of the dictatorship is justified. Economic and structural achievements belie the period of stagnation or regression. In 20 years, the economy grew three and a half times. The national product per capita more than doubled. The transport and communications infrastructure expanded and modernized. Inflation remained low for the most part. All social classes made progress, albeit unevenly, which accentuated inequality. Even so, a revealing social statistic such as the low infant mortality rate per thousand births, which was 116 in 1965, fell to 63 in 1985 (and improved further until reaching 15.3 in 2011). In terms of meeting the demands of health and education, however, the dictatorship fell short of its economic performance. ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014)

As the excerpt above notes, the newspaper argues that transport and communications infrastructure expanded, inflation remained low, the infant mortality rate fell, the economy diversified, society urbanized, and the metropolises grew. Folha also emphasizes that "all social classes made progress," and among all the aspects mentioned in the editorial, the newspaper chooses to highlight the low infant mortality rate in the period. This narrative construction of the newspaper in support of a specific model of capitalism demonstrates what Dreifuss (1981) had already pointed out about the alliance of interdependence between the state and private companies in the period, which was intended not only to deepen the capitalist process in the country but also to incorporate these business interests into the state, guaranteeing the control of society and the economy by these groups:

In one crucial respect, 1964 did not mark a break but the continuation of a previous course. The military governments consolidated the import substitution policy through tariff protection, which had been the main driver of state-led industrialization and which, in the 1970s, made it possible to establish heavy industry in the country. The economy diversified, and society not only urbanized (half of Brazilians lived in cities in 1964; two decades later, more than 70% did) but also became more dynamic and complex. Metropolises grew in a disorganized way, causing acute circulation and security problems. The regime went through different phases, from the repressive upsurge of the first year and the moderate interregnum that preceded the unbridled, brutal dictatorship at the turn of the decade to a lengthy political opening up that began ten years before its formal extinction in 1985. The oil and foreign debt crises caused economic disarray, which soon led to a loss of support, including electoral support. The regime had become too narrow for a society that could no longer fit within its confines. It dissolved in a negotiated transition, the basis of which was the mutual amnesty. ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014)

These arguments align with Diniz's (1994, p. 203) argument that the nucleus of military-corporate interests "was responsible for implementing a capitalist modernization project that led the country to deepen its industrialization process." This Brazilian model, which lasted more than two decades, brought about changes in social structures. With the facilities created by the military for foreign investment, the dictatorship ended up benefiting from very high economic growth, which became known as the "economic miracle." During this period, Brazil was the fastest-growing underdeveloped country in the world. However, society ended up paying a very high price for this accumulation: in the early 1970s, this development model began to show signs of exhaustion (Sanguiné Junior, 1998). Schwarcz and Starling (2015, p , p. 453) confirm that "a marked process of income concentration accompanied the growth of the economy, the result of a restrictive wage policy, in which productivity gains were not passed on to workers."

Published in 2014, at a time when ideological and historiographical revisionism about the civil-military dictatorship was taking place ( Napolitano, 2015 ), this editorial demonstrates Folha de S. Paulo's concern about pointing out the relevance of the period for the country's economic growth, supporting the arguments of those that defend the importance of the dictatorship in Brazil. The editorial disassociates society from the economy by emphasizing the positive aspects of the period, as if they were not linked to the repression of any demonstrations that advocated differences of opinion and other priorities for the country, for example. The economy, which depended on institutional arrangements that could be carried out unilaterally by a centralizing and authoritarian government, was the perfect motto to exploit as a great asset of the period while covering up severe attacks on human rights. On the other hand, by pointing out the violence that took place during the period, the newspaper shows that it recognizes the hegemonic memory critical of the military regime ( Napolitano, 2015) and agrees with it in a certain sense, even if the emphasis on economic gains reinforces the imaginary that the violence in society was "compensated" for by economic progress, an interdiscourse that is still in force today in many parts of the country, and reinforced by the idea of a dispute between socialism and capitalism.

Dispute between two models of society: revolutionary socialism versus the market economy

That was an era of fierce confrontation between two models of society – revolutionary socialism and the market economy. Polarized, the forces engaged on each side sabotaged the intermediate formulas and the very confidence in the peaceful resolution of differences, which is essential to representative democracy ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014).

To justify its support for the regime, the editorial evokes two conflicting models of society, as seen in the excerpt above. In this fragment, the editorial recounts the past as a time of solid confrontation between two – considered the only – models of society. Using the strategy of argumentation, the newspaper argues that it was the polarized forces that were sabotaging democracy. To this end, it presents the errors of both the "right and part of the liberals" and those of the left, positioning itself as an organization that distanced itself from both perspectives:

The right and part of the liberals violated the constitutional order in 1964 and imposed an illegitimate government. They claimed to be waging a counterrevolution aimed at preventing their opponents from establishing an even worse dictatorship, but in doing so, they stopped a whole wave of change and social participation. In the early 1960s, part of the left pushed the limits of legality in the urgency to carry out reforms that were very demagogic. Right after 1964, when the dictatorship was still within certain limits, militarized groups unleashed an armed struggle dedicated to installing a communist dictatorship in the country, just as their opponents accused them of doing. Responsibility for the spiral of violence is thus shared between the two extremes, but not equally: the most significant share of the blame lies with the side that imposed the law of the strongest, and the worst crime was committed by those who made torture a clandestine state policy ( Folha de S. Paulo , 03/30/2014).

According to the newspaper, on the one hand, the right imposed an illegitimate government; on the other, the left pushed the limits of legality. It is possible to observe that the discourse returns to the actions of the right as a response to the left's actions, reinforcing the newspapers' justification that the 1964 coup was the only possible response to the "communization" of the country ( Santos & Costa, 2021) . This is because when Goulart began promoting rallies in the country's main cities to mobilize the population in favor of basic reforms, the relationship between the rally and communism was established by the newspapers ( Abreu, 2005) . The editorial also affirms that both sides were responsible for the violence, but not equally: the military government, which made "torture a clandestine state policy," was more to blame.

Once again, the editorial is reticent about the company's contribution to the regime that was installed in the country by equating the two sides and creating a justification that government violence was a response to the left's attempt to "take over the country" ( Vasconcelos, 2013 ). Not only is this a conveniently fanciful narrative since the government was never threatened, but it also created a relatively valid explanation to support any initiatives to maintain order, even if they implied the suppression of rights. There is a considerable asymmetry between the actions of the right and the left, including in terms of violence. However, the editorial equates them and, by pretending to be critical of both sides in the period, actually washes its hands of a period to which it ultimately contributed by not taking a stand against the terror in force.

Returning to the key questions

Based on this analysis, it was possible to answer the five key questions of the HDA ( Reisigl & Wodak, 2008 ), namely: 1) How are they linguistically named?; 2) What characteristics or qualities are attributed?; 3) What arguments are used?; 4) From what perspective are these arguments used?; and 5) Are the statements intensified or attenuated for the three dichotomous macro-topics identified in the editorial?

About the macro-topic of support for the dictatorship, we can see that Folha de S. Paulo constructs this action in two ways: as a mistake and as a long and painful learning experience. Linguistically named as a mistake, the newspaper characterizes its support as limited in time, using the argument that the decisions were made under adverse conditions, mea culpa fifty years after the military seized power, with support for the coup being recognized as a mistake, but attenuated in light of the learning that this support brought to the newspaper. On the other hand, linguistically enunciated as learning, the support for the dictatorship, characterized as long and painful, brought the newspaper a maturity that, from the perspective of a company operating in the public space, culminated in Folha becoming a mouthpiece for civil society in the period of redemocratization.

Regarding the second dichotomous macro-topic identified in the editorial, it can be seen that the dictatorial regime is characterized by two aspects: violence and economic achievements. The newspaper characterizes the dictatorship as a period with negative points, a regime in which there was much violence that deserves to be rejected. It should be noted, however, that these arguments are used by a company that collaborated with the regime's repression. Nevertheless, to emphasize its rejection of these actions, Folha reinforces the statement about the regime's violence in the editorial, dissociating it from the economic achievements of the period. To this end, the newspaper argues that not all criticism of the regime is well-founded, which is partially explained from the point of view of a company that benefited from the dictatorship's business-military relationship. In this way, the economic achievements of the dictatorship are reinforced by Folha , occupying a significant part of the editorial.

Finally, the last macro-topic identified and analyzed in the editorial "1964" is the dispute between revolutionary socialism and the market economy. The right is enunciated as a market economy, while the left is enunciated as revolutionary socialism. Both are characterized as models of society and polarizing forces that sabotage democracy. For the former, the argument is used that it imposed an illegitimate government; for the latter, that it pushed the limits of legality. These arguments are used from the perspective of a company that, regardless of the current order, changes its political position according to its interests. In this polarized situation, the comparison is intensified insofar as it seeks to argue that the dictatorship results from the error of both models of society. In order to summarize the answers to the five key questions of the HDA ( Reisigl & Wodak, 2008) , Table 4 was drawn up.

Table 4
: Summary of the answers to the key questions of HDA research

Actions, events and actors identified	Linguistic denomination	Attributed characteristics or qualities	Arguments used	Perspective of the arguments	Enunciations intensified or attenuated
Support for the coup	As a mistake	Time limited	Whose decisions were taken under adverse conditions	From a company that is doing its mea culpa fifty years after the military takeover	Throughout the editorial, the support for the coup as a mistake is attenuated so that the focus is on the learning that this support brought to the newspaper.
	As a learning experience	Long and painful	Which brought maturity to the newspaper	From the perspective of a company operating in the public space	Support for the coup as a learning experience is intensified by emphasizing how Folha became a mouthpiece for civil society in the period of redemocratization.
Military regime	As a period with negative points	Of which the violence is emphasized	As a deserved target of rejection	From a company that collaborated with the regime's repression	The regime's violence is intensified in the editorial in order to emphasize Folha's rejection of these actions.
	As a period with positive points	Of which the economic achievements stand out	Arguing that not all criticism of the regime is justified	From a company that benefited from the military-business relationship of the regime	The economic achievements of the military regime are intensified, occupying a large part of the editorial.
The right	The market economy	Two models of society and polarizing forces that sabotaged democracy	By imposing an illegitimate government	From a company that, regardless of the context, changes its political position according to its interests	The comparison between the models of society is intensified in the editorial as it seeks to argue that the dictatorship is the result of the error of both models.
The left	Revolutionary socialism		By pushing the limits of legality

Source: Prepared by the authors.

Conclusions

The objective of this article was to analyze the Folha de S. Paulo editorial "1964," published on March 30, 2014, on the eve of the 50^th anniversary of the 1964 coup, in light of the historical-discursive approach. The aim was to contribute to the discussion on discourse, media and history, and to show how journalistic editorials act discursively in society, either to support and/or legitimize a social movement, or to construct and reconstruct corporate histories over time. After reading and analyzing the editorials, three dichotomous macro-topics were identified: 1) support for the military dictatorship as a mistake versus support as a long and painful learning experience, 2) the regime's violence versus its economic achievements, and 3) the dispute between two models of society: revolutionary socialism versus the market economy. The analysis shows that in this reconstruction of the past, the newspaper uses the discursive strategies of predication, argumentation, perspective, intensification, and mitigation in order to: 1) make the problems caused by the military regime invisible; 2) emphasize the economic growth that the country experienced during the period; and 3) justify its actions by linking them to the context of the time.

It was also possible to observe that, through the construction of this editorial, Folha de S. Paulo chose what to highlight and what to silence about the reconstructed historical period. An example of this is the fact that its support for the dictatorial government was not described, although it was mentioned at the beginning of the editorial. This narrative allows us to observe, on the one hand, that the newspaper is more concerned with showing the inexorability of its collaboration with the military government in a context that is assumed to be complex and of extreme positions, something of which it would have been a kind of victim of circumstances. On the other hand, the newspaper devotes a great deal of space in its editorial to reporting on the positive contributions of the military government to the Brazilian economy without telling the reader, however, how financially favorable the same period was for the company, nor that a high social and political price was paid in the violent repression of those who disagreed with this perspective.

This paper contributes to the debate on how companies' pasts affect and/or influence the present. Since historical narratives are contested spaces in constructing a so-called official past, this (re)construction of the past can be identified in the case of the editorial analyzed: the newspaper problematizes its history. It modifies its discourse to continue serving its particular interests in new contexts. Just as it colluded in the violence against the opponents of the dictatorship in the period, silencing what was happening and emphasizing the "Brazilian miracle," which guaranteed economic gains and space in the period, fifty years later, in a social context of rejection of the 1964 coup and serious investigation of the period of the military dictatorship, the newspaper company feels "duty-bound" to also answer to society. To do so, it discursively admits its mistake as a long and painful learning process – as if companies that operate in the public space with the relevance of major newspapers could do so like ordinary people; it recognizes the context of the dictatorship's violence, but at the same time it highlights the economic and structural achievements of the period, disassociating the two aspects, as if society and the economy were not part of the same complexity of a country; and, last but not least, it accuses part of the right and left of the period of being extremists who ended up justifying the actions of the military government, depoliticizing which side the government was on, and the fantasies around socialism that served to feed a specter that never existed, and which served to suppress the rights of opponents of the dictatorship.

Thus, this research contributes to the field of organizational studies by emphasizing the potential of Ruth Wodak's historical-discursive approach as an analytical model for analyzing editorials. Since this approach integrates and triangulates knowledge of historical sources and the social and political fields in which discursive events are embedded (Wodak, 2009), the HDA provides a vehicle for analyzing power and its potential agents. Furthermore, as an approach that presupposes the centrality of context, the HDA can be understood as a potential theoretical methodology for historical organizational studies and historical management research that adopts critical discourse analysis to analyze different sources.

The research also provides evidence that the articulation between discourse, media, and history has great analytical potential for understanding the political-discursive performance of organizations in society. In particular, it allows for comparisons between historical facts and possibilities for re-readings based on discursive statements that problematize how these facts are presented in terms of the linguistic naming of events, processes, and actions, the aspects attributed to social actors, the arguments used, the perspectives assumed, and the articulation of statements in terms of intensification or attenuation. These aspects, which are central issues in research from the perspective of the historical-discursive approach ( Wodak, 2015 ), involve a promising agenda that can invest, beyond the analysis of specific texts, in the necessary longitudinal studies that cover more extended periods of time in order to understand the relationship between socio-political changes, the media, and the discursive actions of social agents. Therefore, given the scope of this study, we suggest two essential avenues for future research: (1) longitudinal analysis of Folha de S. Paulo's memorial editorials since the year after the 1964 coup in order to understand the discursive changes made by the newspaper on the same issue in different political, social, and economic contexts; and (2) a comparative analysis of editorials published during the same period by other mainstream media companies, in order to understand the similarities and differences between them.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes) and the editors and anonymous reviewers of O&S for their comments.

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Notes

• 1
  . Media is "a complex cultural system. On the one hand, this system has a symbolic dimension in a constant interplay between signs and meanings – which includes the (re)construction, storage, reproduction and circulation of products full of meanings, both for those who produced them (the media) and for those who consume them (readers, spectators, viewers, etc.)" ( Medrado, 2000 , p. 244, author's emphases).
• 2
  . Available at: https://acervo.folha.com.br/index.do .
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Associate Editor: Josiane Silva de Oliveira

Data availability

Data availability

O&S encourages data sharing. However, in compliance with ethical principles, it does not demand the disclosure of any means of identifying research participants, preserving fully their privacy. The practice of open data seeks to ensure the transparency of the research results, without requiring the identity of research participants.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  20 May 2024
• Date of issue
  Jan-Mar 2024

History

• Received
  18 Oct 2023
• Accepted
  06 Dec 2023