THE NEWS CONSTRUCTION OF THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC IN CEARÁ BY THE PARTY NEWSPAPERS PEDRO II AND CEARENSE (1855 - 1863)

Abstract

Between the years 1855-1856 and 1862-1863, the province of Ceará was surrounded by the
cholera-morbus epidemic: initially as a threat and later as a concrete infestation. These two
moments were narrated, among others, by local newspapers Pedro II (conservative) and O
Cearense (liberal), who built, through a biosphere of texts, portraits of the disease, under
cultural and political perspectives. In this research, we investigate, from internal and external evidence to the discourse of newspapers (FAIRCLOUGH, 2016; GINZBURG, 2002;
THOMPSON, 1981), how each publication reported the cholera epidemic as an event
(ALSINA, 2009). We conclude that political clashes, much more dynamic than the
conservative-liberal dualism, interfere in the scheduling of the disease, revealing itself in
content curation (intertextuality) and textual strategies (such as nominalization).