The Brazilian press and the environmental aspects of the energy diversity era

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the growth of the interest of the Brazilian press in the environmental aspects of the energy in the last ten years, through the increment of the number of texts and contents dealing with the topic. Its work method was based on researches of indexes and on published materials, from 1997 to 2006, in a newspaper and in a biweekly business magazine, both of national circulation. The research also focused the most notable contents of these texts. A total of 4,837 texts referring to energy were researched and out of the analyzed texts, 26.31% referred specifically to environmental themes. A progressive increase in the number of texts since 2001 was observed, as well as the informative quality. It is remarkable the growth of emphasis in alternative sources of energy, such as the biomass and the solar sources. The increase of the awareness of the press to the energetic topics was notorious, considering that the texts, initially summarized, progressively gained more space and contents, a symptom of the importance given to the subject. The most commonly energy sources dealt with were the fossil fuels, nuclear, biomass, solar and hydraulic sources. It was also noticed that the peak of intensity were related with the periods of regional energy crisis, as well as the world trends of the topic.