Fichamento: Making News (1978) — Capítulo 6

Continuando o fichamento do livro Making News. A numeração de páginas entre colchetes acompanha imediatamente cada um dos parágrafos; caso um parágrafo não a contenha, é porque a citação abarca também o parágrafo seguinte. Há uma pequena intervenção minha para marcar quando uma citação se prolonga por mais de uma página. Boa leitura!

Referência bibliográfica

TUCHMAN, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. Nova York, Londres: The Free Press, 1978.

Chapter 6: Representation and the News Narrative

“Attributing to news narratives the power to raise certain questions and to ignore others may seem to digress from this book’s argument. Rather than demonstrate that news is a product of specific ways of organizing newswork, it suggests that the formal characteristics of the product of newswork guide inquiry. The power of forms cannot be dismissed.” [P. 104]

“To newsworkers, the ability to build narratives is a professional skill, learned in an earlier day through years of craft apprenticeship. [P. 105] […] the proof of skill is the ability to rise above accepted narrative forms, such as the inverted-pyramid or block styles, and still create a story that maintains the web of facticity and builds drama. Creative professionals writting may be represented by a lead sentence that backs into inverted pyramid. Omitting the “what” and “when” from the lead may serve to whet the reader’s curiosity. Professionalism may mean breaking those rules that serve as bibles for hacks.

For some reporters, professionalism means lightly edited copy. For others, or means rarely reading their published articles, since they find editing either offensive to their autonomy or destructive to their intent. Editors see their professionalism as their ability to rework reporters’ sentences so as to improve upon their intent and to locate still unanswered questions. For both editors and reporters, professionalism means following the dictates of the organization’s style, sometimes formalized in an style book, as at the New York Times.

What makes the news narrative intrinsically different from other narrative forms? Some characteristics of news writing are obvious. Stories are written in the past tense, headlines in the present. Paragraphs are short, perhaps one to three sentences. Sentences generally contain fewer than twenty words and avoid words of more than two syllables. Word order is different from that of spoken language” [P. 106]

“Yet, clearly, the language of news prose contains a special relationship to the everyday world, for like any other language, each both frames and accomplishes discourse. It is perception and it guides perception; it reconstitutes the everyday world.” [P. 107]

“Unlike written copy, film and videotape maximize the reporters’ and cameramen’s intent. One two and the written word, but cannot easily alter the recorded spoken words to insert a new phrase. Nor can one change the distance between camera and speaker, the framing of the picture, short of filming again. Some alteration is, of course, possible. One can reorder sequences of film to create an argument unintended by the person filmed or the one filming. But there are distinct limits to the alternatives possible without refilming. Those limits mean that the rules governing the visual language of news film must be more explicit and hence more accessible than the rules governing the reading and spoken word.” [P. 107]

“[…] news film presents itself to us as actual representations, not as symbols and signs manipulated by set conventions. These self-presentation is specifically contained in the word used by newsworkers and filmmakers to indicate film taken of events in progress. Applied to demonstrations, wars, public meetings, [P. 108] and other sorts of seemingly nonstaged gatherings, that term is “actuality”. […] To paraphrase Goffman (1974: 450), the acceptance of representational conventions as facticity makes reality vulnerable to manipulation. Identifying those conventions as artful manipulations enables one to regard filmed events as social accomplishments — the product of newswork.” [P. 109]

“News film casts an aura of representation by its explicit refusal to give the appearance of manipulating time and space. Instead, its [P. 109] use of time and space announces that the tempo of events and spatial arrangements have not been tampered with to tell this story. By seeming not to arrange time and space, news film claims to present facts, not interpretations. That is, the web of facticity is embedded in a supposedly neutral — not distorted — synchronization of film with the rhythm of everyday life. Like the construction of a newspaper story, the structure of news film claims neutrality and credibility by avoiding conventions associated with fiction.” [P. 110]

“News film’s arrangement of space also eschews dramatic conventions to create an aura of facticity.” [P. 111]

“For a news cameraworker, facticity is produced by meeting and event “head on,” with camera placement fixed to simulate the angle of a person of average height confronting another person eye to eye. All else is condemned as “distortion,” and the team responsible for the affronting footage is likely to receive an official reprimand.” [P. 112]

“In filming one person, the head-on perspective is maintained. Neither the dignitary nor the newsworkers are transformed it into a tornadolike mass. Filming the newsworkers-as-mass would show that newsworkers (not the flow of occurrences) create views, and so would challenge the credibility of news. Such an overview would reveal that much of the excitement of the event has been generated by newsworkers. And just as newspapers reporters use quotation marks to claim impartiality and credibility, so, too, news footage must avoid implying that newsworkers and organizations generate both occurrences and their rendition as events. Supposedly, to imply involvement is to undermine the web of facticity.” [P. 115]

“In general, news film’s adaptations of social roles stress neutrality. By news neutrality I do not mean the refusal to take sides in a dispute, for the anchoring of the newsnet in time and space necessarily involves the news organization in the process of legitimation. Rather, I mean that the visual portrayal of roles [P. 115] stresses noninvolvement: Reporters filmed at the scene of a story are clearly portrayed as being removed from, and uninvolved in, the action sequences. Both reporters and newsmakers are framed as officials and professionals, as one would see them if one set in front of their desks. These social meanings — seeming representations — are achieved by filmic conventions regarding camera range. The framings are designed to be neither intimated nor distant.” [P. 116]

“The distinction between cinematic detachment and participation connotes neutrality.” [P. 121]

“To state that television newsworkers customarily use certain framings to convey social roles is to suggest that television news film employs a lexicon of standard shots. […] Such limitation strongly suggests that television news speaks through codes. The visual detachment of reporters from the phenomena placed in the background may be seen as a code for detachment. Additionally, news film codifies places and events.” [P. 121]

“Consider some standard shots commonly used in television footage to claim representational facticity. First, by framing reporters in front of easily identified symbolic locations, news film informs viewers that the reporter is actually at the scene of the story. […] [P. 121]

Second, events are coded by the supposed sense of the ongoing activity. […]

Third, people are presented symbolically. Not only are they garbed in the clothing appropriate to their occupation, but also nonlegitimated individuals are made to typify all members of their particular group or class.” [P. 122]

“Said to lend drama and human meaning to the news (E. J. Epstein, 1973), symbols accomplish two factors associated with the web [P. 122] of facticity. They provide “actual” supplementary evidence: People as symbols tell of the impact of news events upon their lives so that the reporter need not present interpretations. The symbols thus “protect” reporters from presenting themselves as being involved in the story. And the use of symbols strengthens the distinction between legitimated newsmakers and “just plain folks.” […] Although they are said to be representatives of the people by dint of their legitimated positions and power, they speak for themselves. But symbols are only symbols: people with ideas and opinions are not news in and of themselves. They are not representatives but assumed to be representations of others who are coping with a mutual dilemma. When the dilemma has passed — the strike has ended or the town has started to recover from the hurricane — the symbol loses all news value, and once again is merely an ordinary person undifferentiated from the mass of ordinary people, i.e., a member of the public.” [P. 123]

“Facing ideosyncratic material, film and videotape editors and those supervising their work would have to spend more time than usual working on the material; they would have to decipher the crew’s version of the story and match the decoding to their own version of what the story should be.” [P. 124]

“A television crew that turned in ideosyncratic material would risk seeing its conception of the story transformed by editors facing a crush of stories to be edited and aired. Taking extra time to work on the ideosyncratic footage, the technician assigned the material might develop a backlog of work. In both cases, the film crew and technician face organizational problems.” [P. 125]

“Film or videotape that conforms to the accepted narrative forms facilitates work by other staff members.” [P. 125]

“The usual narrative form is associated with professionalism, satisfies organizational needs, and is familiar to the average Western television viewer.” [P. 127]

“For the television staff, professionalism connotes following the narrative forms in a way that satisfies notions of continuity and variation, each of which has technical and contextual applications. That is, the staff wants to present a story that is both technically and textually continuous, but they wish the story to have sufficient filmic variation to interest the viewer.” [P. 128]

“[…] visual variation as framing device leads film crews and other personnel to “think visually,” as they put it. The newsworkers dislike running too many stories comprised of talking heads. To avoid such visual boredom, they introduce other visual elements whenever possible.” [P. 129]

“The invocation of visual variation relies upon the lexicon of television news framings, any of which, if shown long enough (at least ten seconds), can register its claim to represent the web of facticity.” [P. 130]

“Newspaper feature stories require more careful editing then hard news because they are frequently built upon twists in newspaper narrative style. On television, too, soft news requires more editorial work, because features often aim to incorporate a poetic, not a narrative, vision. The use of narrative forms applied to hard news is suspended.” [P. 131]

“[…] the news narrative raises some questions and ignore others specifically because its style and format are visual incorporations of themes dominating the organization of newswork.

The news media’s bureaucratic organization of time and space is reified in the news narrative’s organization of frames of film. And the use of filmic conventions and narrative forms enables reporters to ensure that their rendition of stories will not be mauled by editors. It facilitates the news organization’s ability to be flexible, to move reporters from story to story during the day. It enables film crews to cover any assignment, to be generalist who can transform any idiosyncratic occurrence into a conventional news event.” [P. 132]

Obras citadas

EPSTEIN, Edward Jay. News From Nowhere: Television and the News. Nova York: Random House, 1973.

GOFFMAN, Erving. Frame Analysis. Filadélfia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974.

Fichamento: Making News (1978) — Capítulo 5

Esta é mais uma postagem da série de fichamentos/transcrições do livro Making News, de Gaye Tuchman. A primeira parte da série com os capítulos 1 e 2, bem como uma pequena contextualização do porquê a estou fazendo, você pode encontrar aqui. O capítulo 3 foi publicado aqui, e o quarto aqui. A numeração de páginas entre colchetes acompanha imediatamente cada um dos parágrafos; caso um parágrafo não a contenha, é porque a citação abarca também o parágrafo seguinte. Há uma pequena intervenção minha para marcar quando uma citação se prolonga por mais de uma página. Boa leitura!

Referência bibliográfica

TUCHMAN, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. Nova York, Londres: The Free Press, 1978.

Chapter 5: The Web of Facticity

“By “facts” I mean pertinent information gathered by professionally validated methods specifying the relationship between what is known in how it is known. Order sort of inquiry, such as philosophy and science, are also concerned with the relationship between phenomena and knowing. But news procedures are neither contemplatively nor geared toward determining essense. Nor are they able to predict axiomatic statements. Unlike more rigorous and reflective approaches to facticity, newswork is a practical activity geared to deadlines. Facts must be quickly identified. But for newsworkers (as for scientists), having witnessed an occurrence is not sufficient to define [P. 82] one’s observation as factual. In science, the problem of facticity is embedded in processes of verification and replication. In news, verification of facts is both a political and a professional accomplishment.” [P. 83]

“In contrast, newsworkers state that finding facts entails demonstrating impartiality by removing one self from a story. Impartiality includes demonstrating that one does everything possible to be accurate so as to maintain credibility and avoid both reprimands from superiors and the omnipresent danger of libel suits.” [P. 83]

“Libel suits, a hazard of the trade, cost money. Although they are relatively rare, when they occur they may place the news organization in financial jeopardy. Equally important, the invocation of libel expresses a concern with the paper’s reputation for maintaining credibility. If libel suits become widely known, they may endanger an organization’s credibility and so potentially decrease sales and profits. The need to maintain credibility explains why most libel suits are settled out of court, even if the news organization believes it could prove its innocence. Additionally, a libel suit disrupts newsroom routine by requiring some staff members to appear in court, thus depleting the news net.” [P. 84]

“”source,” […] a font or point of origin. One may ask how one determines the appropriate point of origin of information — the particular social location that deserves characterization as a source. And how can such sources enable the rapid identification of fact so that deadlines can be met?

Viewing all sources as questionable, news reporters must spend time verifying their statements.” [P. 84]

“Clearly, identifying the appropriate source of information and deciding whether verification is necessary are situationally determined.” [P. 85]

“Rules requiring unimpeachable sources and indentifying those sources are embedded in socially structured understandings of the everyday world and its institutions.” [P. 85]

“Put somewhat differently, to flesh out any one supposed fact one amasses a host of supposed facts that, when taken together, present themselves as both individually and collectively self-validating. Together, they constitute a web of facticity by establishing themselves as cross-reference to one another: A fact justifies the whole (the story is factual), and the whole (all the facts) validates this fact (this particular referent).” [P. 86]

“[…] reporters are engaged in the theoretic activity of making sense of the world by constructing meanings.” [P. 87]

“[…] facts are held necessary to maintain credibility and to meet deadlines.” [P. 87]

“Facts about the powerful are treated with more care than those about the powerless. Rather (1977: 119) recalls covering the death of John Kennedy: “What did I have? Well, I had a doctor at the hospital who said the President was dead. A priest who said, definitely, he was dead. And the hospital’s chief of staff, who had told Eddie Baker [a colleague] he was dead. If you were working the cop shop in Houston, Texas… what you had was a dead man.” But talking to CBS headquarters in New York, Rather had second thoughts about disseminating that news on national radio and television. He continues, “But this [allegedly that man] was the President of the United States… If I had been given, say, two seconds to think about it, if someone had asked, “Do you want us to announce that the President is dead and play the national anthem?” I would have said, woah, better run that past someone else.” [Nota 4, P. 87]

“Taken by itself, a fact has no meaning. Indeed, even “two and two equals four” is factual only within certain mathematical systems or theories. It is the imposition of a frame of other ordered facts that enables recognition of facticity and attribution of meaning.” [P. 88]

“The emphasis on accumulating facts also presupposes that facts can be verified. […] But newsworkers must also cope with nonverifiable facts, facts that could be verified in theory but not in practice — and certainly not in time for deadlines. Dealing with this problem in the approved and [P. 89] professional manner, newsworkers explicitly recognize the mutual embeddedness of fact and source. For rather than recognize a nonverifiable statement as fact, they intermesh fact and source. In the course of accomplishing this copresentation, newsworkers create and control controversies as news.” [P. 90]

“[…] by presenting both truth-claims, the professional [P. 90] reporter theoretically allows the news consumer to decide who is telling the truth. Like doctors who offer a service by telling patients the probable success of different medical options, reporters absolve themselves of responsibility by structuring the alternatives. As previously argued, that necessary framework is implicit in the context of assumed legitimacy.” [P. 91]

“Editors are particularly apt to invoke the distinction between legitimation and quasi legitimation. For instance, during the social ferment of the 1960s editors asked one another, “How many people [P. 91] does that guy represent?” as they purposedly played down coverage of some civil-rights leaders and antiwar groups. […] The editors’ model for determining quasi legitimacy depended upon numerical accretion: the more members, the more legitimate their spokesperson.” [P. 92]

“Most important, in all the time I’ve spent observing reporters and editors, I’ve never heard them challenge the right of an elected or appointed official to make news. Rather, the assumption is that the holder of a legitimate status speaks for the government. All others must demonstrate their relationship to a more amorphous entity — the public.” [P. 92]

“Working distinctions among legitimate newsmakers, quasi-legitimate newsmakers, and the amorphous public imply gradations in whose truth-claims may be reported and framed as fact. Again the power of legitimate sources comes into play.” [P. 92]

“Imputing Facts: Located in an institutionalized news net, reporters and editors accumulate experience with complex organizations and interorganizational relationships. On the basis of that experience, identified as the arcane knowledge implicit in news judgment, newsworkers make three generalizations:

  1. Most individuals, as news sources, have an axe to grind. To be believed, an individual must prove his or her reliability as a news source.
  2. Some individuals, such as committee heads, are in a position to know more than other people in an organization. Although they may have an axe to grind, their information is probably more “accurate” because they have more “facts” at their disposal.
  3. Institutions and organizations have procedures designed to protect both the institution and the people who come into contact with it. The significance of the statement or a “no comment” must be addressed according to the newsworker’s knowledge of institutional procedures.

Each generalization emphasizes a key assumption about the organization of newswork and finding facts. The first generalization, proven by reliability of sources, necessarily favors sources met through institutionalized beats. To prove reliability one must at some time have an ongoing contact with reporters. The second generalization, that some sources have more facts than others, draws on the professional assumption that facts are mutually self-validating. The more facts one has access to, the better one’s chances of knowing what is going on. The third generalization, built upon the other two and, additionally, assumes the inherent rectitude of legitimated organizations.

Newsworkers lump these three generalizations together, speaking of how “something makes sense” intuitively.” [P. 93]

“The Judicious Use of Quotation Marks: Utimatelly, the use of graded sources who may be quoted as offering truth-claims is converted into a technical device designed to distance the reporter from phenomena identified as facts. Quotations of other people’s opinions are presented to create a web of mutually self-validating facts.” [P. 95]

“Adding more names and quotations as mutually determining facts, the newsworkers may achieve distance from the story by getting others to express desired opinions. For example, the reporters may remove their own opinions from the story by getting others to say what they themselves think.” [P. 95]

“Quotation marks do more than remove the reporter’s voice from a story and signal “This statement belongs to someone other than the reporter.” They also may be used to indicate “so-called”. For instance, in the 1960s the New Left (without quotation marks) was the name of a specific group. The “New Left” (with quotation marks) indicated a group calling itself the New Left; in this case the legitimacy of the group is questioned.” [P. 96]

“A professional’s technical device, quotation marks, made the story factual and protected the reporter from his superiors.” [P. 97]

“Of course, the use of quotation marks is embedded in the news net. It presupposes having a source to quote. Yet just as facts may be nonverifiable, so, too, sources may not produce appropriate quotations. Additionally news organizations may wish to present analyses of the facts, stories sustaining an argument independent of an interlocking web of mutually validating facts. The bureaucratic dispersion of newsworkers through time and space, formalize it as a feature of the news product, permits explicitly interpretive analysis to be accomplished.” [P. 97]

“The dispersion of reporters by territory, institucional specialization, and topic is formalized in the division of a newspaper or newscast. A newspaper is divided into sections and pages. Its first pages contain factual (objective) general stories potentially drawing from anywhere and everywhere in the news net. Specialized topical subjects, such as sports, women’s, and financial news, appears on clearly delineated pages placed together in separate sections. General stories in which the reporter standa as the source of facts are placed on [P. 97] either the editorial or the “op ed” page (the page opposite the editorial page). On newspapers there are only two exceptions to this rule. One is the soft-news feature story explicitly immune from the professional requirement of presentation through a web of facticity. On some newspapers the feature story is only a partial exception. […] The other exception is the “news analysis” that may be published on the general pages, if accompanied by the distinct formal label “news analysis”.” [P. 98]

“Television news shows contain similar formal distinctions. Local news shows schedule specific time slots for sports and weather. […] Nacional telecasts also use timing as a formal device. For instance, the evening news (like some local programs) frequently end with a “kicker,” a feature story designed to keep the audience smiling. […] Special labels may identify stories in which the reporter is presented as the source.” [P. 98]

“Just as quotation marks theoretically establish a distance between the reporter and a story, signaling that the materials enclosed may be problematic, the label “news analysis” indicates that the material neither represents the opinions of the management or is necessarily “true”. The presentation is the reporter’s interpretation of the “facts”. Readers or viewers should trust and accept the reporter’s information according to their assessment of his or her qualifications and attitudes, as revealed in the reporter’s general work and previous news analyses. Labeling some items as other than “objective facts” also reinforces the claim that most stories present facts, for it signals, “This news organization is seriously concerned with distinctions between factual and interpretive materials.”” [P. 99]

“As with the distinction between hard and soft news, newsworkers find it difficult to distinguish between fact and interpretation.” [P. 99]

“It is not surprising that newsworkers found the “intuitively obvious” distinction between fact and value judgment difficult to explain. First, facing the problem means considering how much all identification of facts is embedded in specific understandings of the everyday world. As we have seen, those understandings presupposes the legitimacy of existing institutions and are the basis of the news net. To examine the distinction between fact and value judgment, then, is to be willing to examine seriously the indexical and reflexive nature of news as knowledge. It is to acknowledge that news frames strips of everyday occurrences and is not a mere mirror of events. […] [P. 99] It is also to cast aside the identification of news as a crusade for truth.

Second, examining the distinction between fact and value judgments challenges existing professional techniques for telling stories. Those techniques simultaneously confirm the existence of a distinction and enable a of distinction to be made. Newsworkers identify facts with hard news and one mode of storytelling. They associate soft news with quite a different mode.” [P. 100]

“The stories may also be viewed as formal narratives. Although popular culture uses “narrative” to refer to a fictional account, any story is necessarily a narrative exposition as it structures items and has a beginning, middle, and end.” [Nota 18, P. 100]

“The soft-news genre, nonscheduled news, is presented in a more varied narrative, divorced from the lead-documentation structure. The lead sentence made turn on a twist of words. It may back into a story by presenting an unattributed quotation or generalization that is subsequently specified. The article may have a surprise ending, like a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It may attribute motivation or human qualities two animals and inanimate objects. It may parody. It may move from one narrator to another, building suspension and leading to a denouement. In short, eschewing the mode of lead documentation, the mode of facticity, such an article may be difficult to edit. These pieces are often removed from the routines associated with deadline journalism and demand nonscheduled editorial care. Significantly, because feature stories evoke a different mode of narration, they are set to require special professional skills, particularly a light touch as opposed to the heavy hand of amassed facts. [P. 101]

“The notion of different modes of narrative serves as a method of guiding reporters to locate appropriate facts. Questions to be [P. 101] asked are contained in the form of presentation.” [P. 102]

“As known story forms (lead-documentation) demanding facts and sources, “the fire,” “the trial,” “the political convention,” “the lost child,” “the death of the president” reduce the idiosyncrasy of occurrences as news. Accepted as professional tools and extensions of news typifications, the different approaches to set story forms may, of course, lead the reporter to the wrong conclusions, and so hamper coverage.” [P. 103]

Fichamento: Making News (1978) — Capítulo 4

Esta é mais uma postagem da série de fichamentos/transcrições do livro Making News, de Gaye Tuchman. A primeira parte da série com os capítulos 1 e 2, bem como uma pequena contextualização do porquê a estou fazendo, você pode encontrar aqui. Já a segunda parte foi publicada aqui. A numeração de páginas está entre colchetes e acompanha imediatamente cada um dos parágrafos; caso um parágrafo não a contenha, é porque a citação abarca também o parágrafo seguinte. Há uma pequena intervenção minha para marcar quando uma citação se prolonga por mais de uma página. Referências bibliográficas utilizadas pela autora estão ao final do texto, em formato ABNT. Boa leitura!

Referência bibliográfica

TUCHMAN, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. Nova York, Londres: The Free Press, 1978.

Chapter 4: Flexibility and Professionalism

“Sociologists studying organizations and professions tell us that the variability of materials, organizational flexibility, and professionalism are interrelated. Briefly put, the greater the variability of raw materials, the greater the organizational flexibility and, accordingly, the greater the professionalism of workers. Here, professionalism connotes the exercise of autonomy, the right of workers to control their own work (Freidson, 1971), frequently by reference to norms developed by professional agencies external to the organizations in which they work (E.C. Hughes, 1964).” [P. 65]

“Direct supervision of the work process (rather than the product) would require an expensive organizational investment in more editorial personnel. News organizations maintain flexibility and save money by discouraging a more complex bureaucracy than already exists, and by and encouraging professionalism among [P. 65] reporters. Among reporters, professionalism is knowing how to get a story that meets organizational needs and standards.” [P. 66]

“Some reporters resist promotion to an editorial position, such as assistant city editor, because it decreases their association with sources. The longer someone has served as an editor, the less familiarity he or she has with the news sources. However, promotions to managing editor and the even higher echelons of newswork bring familiarity with the very powerful.” [Nota 2, P. 65]

“One crucial finding emerges from watching the reporters work: Specialties are ignored when necessary. Everyone must be capable of doing everyone else’s work. […] The ultimate aim of the bureau, like that of the newspaper, is to get its work done. If everyone stuck to his or her specialty, there might sometimes be a gap in the news net. For all recognizably newsworthy stories to be covered, each specialist must be a generalist, and vice versa. To quote several reporters, each must “be a professional” capable of covering everything and anything, because it may be a sign of anything at anytime.” [P. 67]

“Being a reporter means knowing how to find stories pertinent to one’s placement in the news net.” [P. 68]

“By knowing enough sources, reporters can maximize their ability to file a story everyday and thus demonstrate their competence. That having a story is a matter of competence becomes clear early in the day.” [P. 68]

“The higher the status of sources and the greater the scope of their positions, the higher the status of the reporters. As is well known, news stories, news sources, and reporters are hierarchically arranged.” [P. 69]

“Gaining more sources works similarly to the distribution of honors in science. To use Merton’s (1973) description, the “Mathew Effect” is in operation: The more one has, the more one gets. “Big stories” go to the height status reporters, even if that means breaching current specialties.” [P.70]

“Knowing sources brings participation in a common reportorial culture.” [P. 71]

“Being a participant in the press room culture brings increased familiarity with sources. Accepted into the culture, reporters may wander over to greet a source who drifts into the room.” [P. 71]

“Athough reporters tend to be liberal, the atmosphere in the newsroom it’s not liberal. In every newsroom I have visited, political stickers are affixed to desks. Generally they have indicated past support for the Vietnam war, opposition to gun control, and other conservative leanings. I have never seen a liberal sticker on a desk.” [Nota 8, P. 71]

“Finally, knowing sources simply enables reporters to do their work adequately.” [P. 72]

“That some reporters have more sources than others also means that some reporters may work in others’ specialties, for any privately generated idea or information is the explicit property of its originator.” [P. 73]

“Of course, while colleagues assist one another, the possibility that someone may poach on one’s territory intensifies the competition to maintain one’s private bank of sources. When a source has given a story to someone else, even a colleague from the same organization [P. 73], a reporter will ask “Why didn’t you give that to me?” or complain, “I thought you were going to give that to me”. […] Although employed by a news organization, the reporters presented themselves as autonomous professionals when dealing with sources. Indeed, for one reporter to ask another the name of a concealed source was to violate professional norms […]. I subsequently noted that reporters did not ask colleagues the name of a source when one visited the bureau. Nor did a reporter necessarily introduce the source to his colleagues. Similarly, if a competitor from another organization knew the source, he might say to the visiting source, with a tinkle in his eye, “How are you doing, John?” thus displaying his own professional contacts.” [P. 74]

“Merely concluding that reporters express their professional autonomy from editorial supervision by hoarding sources and sharing information with bureau colleagues is to understate the matter. Relatively free from editorial supervision, reporters have evolved a complex code that may contravene organizational dictates. If reporters were merrily bureaucratic employees operating according to the rules and needs of their organization, they might be expected to hoard information from reporters working for competing media and share with all reporters from their own company. Instead, exercising their autonomy, they may share with competitors and hoard information from other bureaus within their own organization. Identification of information as either bureau or personal property is determined by the reporters need to maintain control of his or her work.” [P. 74]

“Sharing Information with Competitor’s Reporters: Discarding the organizational dictate not to share with competitors, reporters invoke collegiality to exchange some kinds of information with competitors. Readily available information is shared; privately developed information rarely is. Reporters consider it I’ll mannered either to request privately developed information or to refuse easily accessible material.” [P. 75]

“Reporters from competing news organizations see one another day after day. Together, they participate and construct a daily [P. 76] work life. They see members of their own organization more rarely…” [P. 77]

“Reportorial cooperation must be attributed to more than proximity. In part, mutual assistance is a case of mutual back scratching. […] But more general principles of collegiality are also involved.” [P. 77]

“In the course of their careers, reporters, like other professionals, move from one organization to another to obtain promotions, [P. 77] raises, and increased status. Socializing with one another, attending some of the same parties, reporters know one another by reputation, if not by face-to-face contact. Having a reputation for professional sharing enhances one’s occupational mobility and the warmth with which one is greeted by new colleagues. Reporters working out of city rooms share information when they meet competitors at the scene of a story. After returning to their desks, they may telephone one another to seek limited help. And, when all are faced with a dearth of information they may pool their “facts”. […] Ultimately of course search professional cooperation enhances adherence to the prime organizational requirement: getting the story in time to disseminate it.” [P. 78]

“When one reporter enterprises a story in another’s specialty, the plandered party is expected to follow professional protocol — to approve and to help — just as a replaced doctor is expected to transmit case records willingly to an ex-patient’s newly selected physician. Other forms of cooperation are ongoing and informal. […] locating minor “facts” takes time and only breaks the rhythm of writing. And for a reporter, writing is only too often a race against deadlines. Collegial exchange of middle initials and spellings serves the organizational needs of getting work done on time.” [P. 78]

“Utimatelly, though, reporters preserve their professional autonomy by jealously protecting their private sources and specialties from others’ encroachment — while trying to poach others’ material.” [P. 78]

“Although grounded in professional understandings, this cooperation also aids the organization. […] Whether such contracts qualify as professional courtesy or organizational exchange, these exchanges demonstrates that reporters and bureaus must be flexible. The news net must be flexible if the news organization is to locate occurrences qualifying as news events. Reporters must be capable of covering everything and anything while [P. 80] meeting deadlines. They must know where to get information as expediently as possible.” [P. 81]

“Clearly, whom one asks for information influences what information one receives. Throughout this chapter I have implied that the bureau reporters seek out centralized sources, politicians, and bureaucrats. I never observed reporters contacting the leaders of social movements. Nor did they search out grass-roots leaders, preferring instead the leaders of local political clubs. They distinguished among political clubs by pointing to the actual power each wields. They contacted the powerful, the politician with the resources to accomplish his or her ambitions, not the merely dissident or dissatisfied. That people with power serve as sources bears consequences for the information newsworkers uncover […]” [P. 81]

“Additionally, of course, reporters must know what questions to ask the source, what “facts” to find. Without having some idea of what might be the heart of the matter, the story to be told, each occurrence could maintain its claim to idiosyncratic treatment and thus increase the variability of occurrences as the raw material of news. Knowing what to ask influences whom one asks: The choice of sources and the search for “facts” mutually determine each other.” [P. 81]

Obras citadas

HUGHES, Everett C. Men and Their Work. Nova York: Free Press, 1964.

FREIDSON, Eliot. Profession of Medicine: A Study in the Sociology of Applied Knowledge. Nova York: Dodd, Mead, 1971.

Fichamento: Making News (1978) — Capítulo 3

Esta é mais uma postagem da série de fichamentos/transcrições do livro Making News, de Gaye Tuchman. A primeira parte da série, bem como uma pequena contextualização do porquê a estou fazendo, você pode encontrar aqui. A numeração de páginas segue imediatamente cada um dos parágrafos; caso um parágrafo não a contenha, é porque a citação abarca também o parágrafo seguinte. Há uma pequena intervenção minha para marcar quando uma citação se prolonga por mais de uma página. Referências bibliográficas citadas pela autora estão ao final do texto, em formato ABNT. Boa leitura!

Referência Bibliográfica

TUCHMAN, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. Nova York, Londres: The Free Press, 1978.

Chapter 3: Time and Typifications

“As competent members of society, we all commonsensically know of the intertwining of time and space. We speak of family hour, a time and space for activity. We measure space in temporal terms when we indicate that some place is within a two-minute drive or a ten-minute walk. We use a spatial metaphor when we speak of a “length of time”. Specialist in the study of time-use affirm that we measure distances temporally.” [P. 39]

“Yet, the metaphor of “spatialized time” is profound for it emphasizes that the social ordering of time and space stands at the heart of organized human activity.” [P. 39]

“[…] temporal planning caracterized social action as project. That is, social action is carried out in the future perfect tense. Action is cast into the future in order to accomplish acts that will have happened, should everything go as anticipated.” [P. 41]

“One may generalize that the news media carefully imposed a structure upon time and space to enable themselves to accomplish the work of any one day and to plan across days. As is the case with the spatial news net, the structuring of time influences the assessment of occurrences as news events.” [P. 41]

“Just as reporters seek central spatial locations to find potential news events, so, too, reporters are temporarily concentrated.” [P. 41]

“This matching of the news organization’s dispersion of reporters to the office hours of institutions extends to weekend scheduling.” [ P. 42]

“One consequence of synchronized working hour is that few reporters are available to cover stories before 10:00 AM os after 7:00 PM on weekdays, and even fewer at those times in weekends. This social arrangement influences the assessment of occurrences as potential news events. According to one New York reporter, anyone wishing coverage for an evening occurrence had better have a “damn good story”.” [P. 42]

“Epstein (1973) argues that news is also spatially limited. At the time of his study, the networks found it easier to cover stories in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Washington then in other cities because of the placement of connecting cables. Additionally, stories from Vietnam had to have a timeless quality, since the film had to be flown from Saigon to New York for editing. New technologies have created somewhat greater flexibility.” [Nota 5, P. 43]

“[…] to project work into time and so to control work, the news media plan across days.” [P. 44]

“A multitude of stories means that each one cannot be disseminated; choices must be made. […] The process of planning to handle this glut results in a system of classifying occurrences as news events.” [P. 45]

“[…] the news net produces more stories that can be processed. Each one of these is a potential drain upon the news organization’s temporal and staff resources.” [P. 45]

“Just as hospital personal differentiate among diseases according to their demands for organizational resources, news personnel must anticipate the claims of potential occurrences upon their resources. To control work, newsworkers have developed typifications of occurrences as news stories. (Typifications are classifications arising from practical purposive action.) Anchored or embedded in the use of time, the news typifications characterizes stories and constitutes newsworthiness.

The anchoring or embeddedness of typifications in time shares two other important characteristics with the anchoring of newsworthiness in the spatial news net. That is, both news typifications and the assignment of newsworthiness are relatively content free. We have seen that newsworthiness is a negotiated phenomenon rather than the application of independently derived objective criteria to news events. So too, typifications of kinds of news draw upon the way occurrences happen, not upon what is happening. The typifications are only relatively content free, because some sorts of occurrences are likely to happen one way while others have a different temporal rhythm.” [P. 46]

“At work, reporters and editors refer to five categories of news: hard, soft, spot, developing, and continuing. Journalism text and informants explain that these terms differentiate kinds of news content and the subject of events-as-news. Asked for definitions of their categories, newsworkers fluster, for they take this categories so much for granted that they find them difficult to define. To specify definitions, newsworkers offer examples of the stories that fall within a given category. They tend to classify the same stories in the same manner.” [P. 47]

“Hard News Versus Soft News: The newsworkers’ main distinction is between hard news and its antithesis, soft news. As they put it, hard news concerns occurrences potentially available to analysis or interpretation, and consists of “factual presentations” of occurrences deemed newsworthy.” [P. 47]

“[…] soft news, also known as feature or human-interest stories.” [P. 47]

“Newsworkers distinguish between these two lists by saying that a hard-news story is “interesting to human beings” and a soft-news story is “interesting because it deals with the life of human beings” (Mott, 1952: 58). Or they state that hard news concerns information people should have to be informed citizens and soft news concerns human foibles and the “texture of our human life” (Mott, 1952: 58). Finally, newsworkers may simply summarize: Hard news concerns important matters and soft news, interesting matters.

These separate yet similar attempts to distinguish between hard and soft news present the same classificatory problem; the distinctions overlap. Frequently it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether an event is interesting or important or is both interesting and important. Indeed, the same event may be threated as either hard- or soft-news story.” [P. 48]

“Spot News and Developing News: […]

Asked to discuss spot news, news workers replied that it is a type (subclassification) of hard news. They cited fires as a prototypical example of spot news. (Occasionally, informants added a second example, such as robbery, murder, accident, tornado, or earthquake.) The subject matter of all examples was conflict with nature, technology, or the penal code.

Asked about developing news (another subclassification of hard news), the newsworkers cited the same examples. Asked to distinguish between spot and developing news, informants introduced a new element: the amount of information that they have about an even-as-news at a given moment. When they learned of an unexpected event, it was classed “spot news”. If it took a while to [P. 48] learn the “facts” associated with a “breaking story”, it was “developing news”. It remained “developing news” so long as “facts” were still emerging and being gathered.” [P. 49]

“Continuing News: […] continuing news is a series of stories on the same subject based upon the following events occurring over a period of time. As a prototype, the newsworkers cited the legislative bill. The passage of a bill they explained, is a complicated process occurring over a period of time.” [P. 49]

“[…] certain kinds of event-as-news tend to happen in certain ways. And so, reporters and editors “just happen” to be alerted to the need to process them in different ways.” [P. 50]

“The notion of news as frame, particularly the recognition that organizations perform work upon the everyday world to make sense of daily experience, enables the realization that the classificatory scheme is grounded in the rhythm of time use.” [P. 50]

“Embedded in practical tasks, the newsworkers’ typifications draw on the synchronization of their work with the likely schedule of potential news occurrences. […] the newsworkers’ distinctions between hard and soft news reflect questions of [P. 50] scheduling. Distinctions between spot and developing news pertains to the allocation of resources across time, and vary in their application according to the technology being used. And the typification “continuing news” is embedded in predicting the course of events-as-news.” [P. 51]

“If newsworkers do not act quickly, the hard-news story will be obsolete before it can be distributed in today’s news cast or tomorrow’s paper.” [P. 51]

“In contrast soft-news stories need not be “timely”. The Sunday newspaper is padded with feature stories about occurrences earlier in the week.” [P. 51]

“Members of the news enterprise almost always control the timing and flow of work required to process soft-news stories. […] A reporter may be assigned to these stories days in advance, and the specific information to be included in the story may be gathered, written, and edited days before its eventual dissemination.” [P. 52]

“Spot-news events are unscheduled; they appear suddenly and must be processed quickly. The examples offered by informants indicate that spot news is the specifically unforeseen event-as-news.” [P. 53]

“Some events that newsworkers nominate for membership in the typification “spot news” are of such importance that newsworkers try to create a stable social arrangement to anticipate them — even if the probability that the event will occur is minute.” [P. 53]

“Developing news concerns “emergent situations”.” [P. 54]

“”Facts” must be reconstructed and as more information becomes known, the “facts” will be more “accurate”. Although the actual occurrence remains the same, the account of it changes, or, as the newsworkers put it, “the story develops”. Ongoing changes of this sort are called “developing news”.

Most spot-news stories are developing news. Since both present interrelated work demands newspaper staffs tend to use the terms interchangeably. Television workers use the term “developing news” in a more restricted sense, identifying some stories as spot news that print journalists term “developing news”. Again technology acts as a key in their formulations, each technology being associated with a different rhythm in the centralized services feeding the news net.” [P. 55]

“Spot news and developing news are constituted in work arrangements intended to cope with the amount of information specifically predictable before an event occurs. These information is slight or nonexistent, because the events are unscheduled. In contrast, continuing news facilitates the control of work, for continuing news events are generally prescheduled. Prescheduling is implicit in the newsworkers definition [P. 56] of continuing news as a “series of stories on the same subject based upon events occurring over a period of time”. This definition implies the existence of prescheduled change.” [P. 57]

“Because they are prescheduled, continuing news stories help newsworkers in news organizations regulate their own activities by freeing staff to deal with the exigencies of the specifically unforeseen.” [P. 57]

“[…] newsworkers use typifications to transform the idiosyncratic occurrences of the everyday world into raw materials that can be subjected to routine processing and dissemination. Typifications are constituted in practical problems, including those posed by the synchronization of news work with how occurrences generally unfold. They impose order upon the raw material of news and so reduce the variability (idiosyncrasy) of the glut of occurrences. They also channel the newsworkers’ perceptions of the everyday world by imposing a frame upon strips of daily life.” [P. 58]

“Instead of existing as formulations subject to continual revision and reconstitution, objectified ideas may elicit set ways of dealing with the world. As the product of the intertwining of news time and the news net, the news typifications have become part of the reporter’s professional stock of knowledge-at-hand. That is, being a professional reporter capable of coping with idiosyncratic occurrences means being able to use typifications to invoke appropriate reportorial techniques.” [P. 58]

“Inaccurately predicted events-as-news require major unplanned alterations in work processes. Like spot news they are unscheduled and specifically unforeseen. Like developing news, they are perceived through the frame of a specific technology. Like continuing news, they involve both prediction and postdiction of an event as a member of a chain of events. The challenge knowledge and routines that reporters and editors take for granted.” [P. 59]

“In short, as professionals, they knew how to institute routines associated with the rhythm of newswork. And, as professionals, they were familiar with the news organizations need to generate stories and to control the idiosyncrasies of the glut of occurrences by dispersing reporters in a news net flung through time and space.” [P. 63]

Obras citadas

EPSTEIN, Edward Jay. News from Nowhere: Television and the News. Nova York: Random House, 1971.

MOTT, Frank Luther. The News in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952.

Fichamento: Making News (1978) — Capítulo 2

Estou lendo/fichando um livro que, até onde entendi, é uma daquelas “bibliografias clássicas” do Jornalismo. Trata-se do Making News, escrito em 1978 pela Gaye Tuchman. Nessa obra, ela aborda o enquadramento da notícia, o recorte espaço-temporal onde se realiza uma reportagem, e a rede de relações entre acontecimentos e fontes na construção da “factualidade” de uma notícia. Ela também apresenta um case sobre a forma como a imprensa abordou a insurgência feminista em meados do século XX.

Interessou? Tenho uma boa e uma má notícia: são os destaques ipsis literis de todas as citações que achei de mais importantes ao longo da leitura, em inglês (essa é a “má” notícia). A boa notícia é que esse é um livro raro de encontrar, e não existe na internet, aparentemente.

Referência Bibliográfica

TUCHMAN, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. Nova York, Londres: The Free Press, 1978.

Chapter 2: Space and the News Net

“There is a significant difference between the capacity of a blanket in that of a net to gather fodder for daily newspaper columns and television air time. Each arrangement me capture fresh information daily thus confirming and reinforcing the old adage “old news is no news”. (News go stale like bread and cakes; it is a depletable consumer item.) But a net has holes. Its haul is dependent upon the amount invested in intersecting fiber and the tensile strength of that fiber. The narrower the intersections between the mesh — the more blanketlike the net — the more can be captured. Of course, designing a more expensive narrow mesh presupposes a desire to catch small fish, not a wish to throw them back into the flow of amorphous everyday occurrences.” [P. 21]

“Today’s news net is intended for big fish. […] For just as earlier newspapers places reporters at police stations, were sensational cases might be located, so today’s news media place reporters at legitimated institutions where stories supposedly appealing to contemporary news consumers may be expected to be found.” [P. 21]

“Equally significant, placement of reporters at these locations and assignment of these responsibilities reaffirm and reinforce these organizations’ public legitimacy. Occurrences are more likely to be defined as news when reporters witness them or can learn of them with little effort.” [P. 22]

“The news net is refined by attenuating reportorial responsibility and economic reward. The media hire stringers to alert them to occurrences in more specialised organizations, such us local colleges, and in geographic areas of limited but clear circulation value, such as suburbs. The name “stringer” connotes an attenuated relationship to the news net, even as it reaffirms the imagery of the net or web.” [P. 22]

“Instead of blanketing the world by their independent efforts, the news media and the news services leave the same sorts of hole in the news net, holes justified by a professionally shared notion of news.” [P. 23]

“The news net imposes order on the social world because it enables news events to occur at some locations but not at others.” [P. 23]

“Equally important, the news net is a hierarchical system of information gatherers and so the status of reporters and the news net may determine whose information is identified as news.” [P. 24]

“Similarly, editor prefer to publish or telecast material prepared by their staff rather than by centralized news services.” [P. 24]

“Finally, the news net imposes a frame upon occurrences through the cooperation of the complex bureaucracy associated with the dispersion of reporters. Interactions within the bureaucratic hierarchy, reporters and editors jockeying with one another, may determine what is identified as news. Reporters compete with one another for assignments. Editors compete with other editors to get assignments for their reporters and then negotiate to get their reporters’ stories in the paper or on the air.” [P. 25]

“Originally designed to attracted readers’ interests by catching appropriate stories available at centralized locations, the newsnet incorporates three assumptions about reader’s interests:

  1. Readers are interested in occurrences at specific localities.
  2. They are concerned with the activities of specific organizations.
  3. They are interested in specific topics.” [P. 25]

“Geographic Territoriality: First, the news media divide the world into areas of territorial responsibility. The actual divisions used by any specific news organization replicate the organization’s notion of its mission — what it believes its particular readers want to know [P. 25] and what it is financially prepared to bring them.”

“Organizational Specialization: A second method of dispersing reporters is to establish beats and bureaus at organizations associated with the generation of news and holding centralized information.” [P. 27]

“Topical Specialization: Formally introduced during the circulation wars of the late nineteenth century, this method is constituted in independent departments with their own budgets. Their editors report directly to a managing or executive editor, bypassing the territorial desks. Topical specialties include finance, sports, and family/style or so-called women’s departments, as well as culture and education.” [P. 29]

“That all territorial-desk editors and topical-department editors report do the same person (usually called a managing editor, sometimes an executive editor) mitigates this problem. By coordinating the activities of the major territorial and [P. 32] topical editors as the day progresses, the managing editor may continually revise ongoing plans for and visions of that day’s newspaper or television news show. As coordinator and the person responsible for the news product, the managing editor heads negotiations about which items are truly important news.”

“In sum, the assessment of newsworthiness is a negotiated phenomenon, constituted in the activities of a complex bureaucracy designed to oversee the news net.

One may conclude that the news net not only excludes some occurrences from consideration as news because of a pattern of centralization at legitimated institutions; it also orders priorities by which sort of employee or service produced an item, reporter or stringer, staff or Associated Press reporter. Additionally, the news net is anchored through complex overlapping responsibilities, ordered by bureaucratic editorial hierarchy. In the act of judging [P. 37] value of diverse items caught by the news net, the editors perpetually create and recreate negotiate standards of judgment. By accomplishing judgements, the editors in turn affirm and reaffirm the validity of the k anchoring of the news net as a frame imposing order and coherence on the social world.” [P. 38]

Fichamento: Making News (1978) — Capítulo 1

Sei que não terminei nenhuma das séries que comecei neste blog — a saber, a leitura crítica de Gender Trouble e o fichamento de A Passion for Friends. Mas acabei me empolgando com a leitura de um outro livro e resolvi trazer para cá o material transcrito do fichamento que tenho feito dele. Esse fichamento é especial porque estou usando o recurso de transcrição de voz do Android para fazer as transcrições do texto em inglês. Assim, ao mesmo tempo em que disponibilizo um conteúdo que não é facilmente acessível (o livro em questão foi publicado em 1978 e não tem muitas edições desde então), também estudo e melhoro a pronúncia do idioma. Obviamente que nem tudo são flores na hora em que uma nativa da Última Flor do Lácio precisa falar — e, principalmente, pronunciar — na língua inglesa, mas um dia talvez eu conte aqui dos meus percalços nesse sentido.

Making News: a study in the construction of reality, de autoria de Gaye Tuchman, é exatamente o que diz o título. A autora discute o jornalismo enquanto profissão, prática e ideologia. Não fiz aqui, como fiz na série sobre os livros de Butler e de Raymond, uma leitura comentada da obra, mas tentei manter a coerência entre os vários trechos que estou disponibilizando, de modo que quem os leia consiga mais ou menos captar a essência e as ideias principais de cada capítulo. Já li e fichei metade dos capítulos — o que significa que as chances de eu conseguir terminar essa série são mais altas que o normal para este blog — e vou publicá-los um por dia ao longo dos próximos dias. Vamo que vamo!

Referência Bibliográfica

TUCHMAN, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. Nova York, Londres: The Free Press, 1978.

Prefácio

“This book is the product of my attempts, over the past 11 years, to learn about news as social construction of reality. It is a study of the constraints of newswork and of the resources available to newsworkers. It is a sturdy of newsworkers as professionals and of newspapers and television newsrooms as complex organizations. And it is a study of methods of inquiry — how newsworkers determine facts and frame events and debates pertinent to our shared civic life.” [P. ix]

“As well as presenting concrete descriptions, exemples, and analyses of newswork, this book addresses a theoretical debate about the role of consciousness in the construction of social meanings and the organization of experience.” [P. x]

Chapter 1: News as Frame

“News is a window on the world.” [P. 1]

“But, like any frame that delineates our world, the news frame maybe considered problematic. The view through a window depends upon whether the window is large or small, has many panes or few, whether the glass is opaque or clear, whether the window faces a street or a backyard. The unfolding scene also depends on where one stands, far or near, craning one’s neck to the side, or gazing straight ahead, eyes parallel to the wall in which the window is encased.” [P. 1]

“By seeking to disseminate information that people want, need, and should know, news organisations both circulate and shape knowledge. […] the priorities in the media’s ranked attention to topics may prompt the ranking given those same topics by news consumers. Additionally, the news media have the power to shape news for consumers’ opinions on topic about which they are ignorant.” [P. 2]

“By stressing news as knowledge, I do not mean to suggest that news reports are the only mass medium shaping understanding of the everyday world, particularly interpretations of novel phenomena. Communications researchers (see Klapper, 1960) have established that news may be of limited force in swaying public opinions and attitudes. Equally well accepted is that mass entertainment, particularly television, influences political and social attitudes. […] TV entertainment has also been shown to lower the educational and occupational aspirations of adolescent girls if they heavy viewers and the children of college-educated parents (Gross and Jeffries-Fox, 1978). […] Entertainment appears to have an awesome impact upon viewers’ attitudes and beliefs. [P. 3]”

“What I mean to suggest is that news imparts to occurrences their public character as it transforms mere happenings into publicly discussable events.” [P. 3]

“[…] news coordinates activities within a complex society by making otherwise inaccessible information available to all. […] It permits institutions to coordinate their activities. And it enables officials to anticipate reactions to proposals under consideration.” [P. 4]

“Because news imparts a public character to occurrences, news is first and foremost a social institution. First, news is an institutional method of making informations available to consumers. […] Second, news is an ally of legitimate institutions. […] Third, news is located, gathered, and disseminated by professionals working in organizations. Thus it is inevitably a product of newsworkers drawing upon institutional processes and conforming to institutional practices. Those practices necessarily include association with institutions whose news is [P. 4] routinely reported. Accordingly, news is the product of a social institution, and it is embedded in relationships with other institutions. It is a product of professionalism and it claims the right to interpret everyday occurrences to citizens and other professionals alike.” [P. 5]

“Sociologists generally holds that the interests of professionals and of organizations conflict: Employed professionals and managers or owners are said to battle one another for the right to control work — to define how work will be done. […] But more generally, I found, news professionalism has developed in conjunction with modern news organizations, and professional practices serve organizational needs. Both, in turn, serve to legitimate the status quo, complementing one another’s reinforcement of contemporary social arrangements, even as they occasionally compete for the control of work processes and the right to be identified with freedom of the press and freedom of speech.” [P. 5]

“”Once upon a time” announces that what follows is a myth and pretense, a flight of cultural fancy. The news lead proclaims that what follows is factual and hard-nosed, a veridical account of events in he world. But, ultimately, both the fairy tales and the news account are stories, to be passed on, commented upon, and recalled as individually appreciated public resources. Both have a public character in that both are available to all, part and parcel of our cultural equipment. Both draw on the culture for their derivation. […] Both take social and cultural resources and transform them into public property […] [P. 5] Drawing on cultural conventions, members of Western societies impose distinctions between stories about the two men that obscure their shared features of public character and social construction.” [P. 6]

“Just as it is possible to imagine alternate plots and endings to stories produced for and with children, so, too, we can imagine alternative ways for the professor to organize (frame) the strip of ongoing occurrences that constituted her day as events to be produced as news.” [P. 7]

“The theme that the act of making news is the act of constructing reality itself rather than a picture of reality runs throughout this book. Newswork transforms occurrences into news events. It draws on aspects of everyday life to tell stories, and it present us to ourselves. By accomplishing this second task, it serves as a basis for social action. But the process of making news is not accomplished in a void, and so the second theme is that professionalism serves organizational interests by reaffirming the institutional process in which the newswork is embedded.” [P. 12]

Obras citadas

GROSS, Larry; JEFFRIES-FOX, Suzanne. “What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up, Little Girl? Approaches to the Study of Media Effects”. In: TUCHMAN, Gaye; DANIELS, Arlene Kaplan; BENÉT, James (ed.). Hearth and Home: Images of Women in the Mass Media. Nova York: Oxford University Press, 1978. P. 240-265.

KLAPPER, Joseph T. The Effects of Mass Comunication. Nova York: The Free Press, 1960.

Design editorial e linguagem gráfica na web

No design de interfaces gráficas, metáforas ajudam a orientar os usuários: através de símbolos e ações, elas comunicam as funções e os usos possíveis do programa a partir de analogias feitas com o mundo material. Assim, pictogramas de lixeiras sinalizam o diretório onde se pode descartar arquivos que não são mais úteis, enquanto que pictogramas de lupas indicam a possibilidade de fazer pesquisas no conteúdo disponível.

A maioria dessas metáforas funciona mais como índices das ações possíveis, pois nem sempre representam a realidade das ações dos seus significantes no mundo real. Elas apenas acrescentam uma camada a mais de abstração no uso de dispositivos eletrônicos. O uso literal de algumas dessas representações pode ser tentador para o designer iniciante, mas também pode proporcionar uma experiência de uso pior em ambiente eletrônico, principalmente se esbarrar em alguma limitação da plataforma. Uma dessas metáforas tentadoras é a do page flip [1], que tenta simular o folhear de páginas de um códice impresso. O projeto de interfaces para web, no entanto, não precisa estar circunscrito ao formato de uma mídia que não comporta as suas características.

Isso não significa que o designer de interfaces não possa se valer das linguagens da mídia impressa — e do repertório e do conhecimento prévio dos usuários — na manipulação de outras mídias. É preciso conhecer as possibilidades da mídia para usar com sabedoria e criatividade essas ferramentas.

No início dos anos 2000, muitas limitações — incluindo aí a menor capacidade de tráfego de dados na rede e a falta (do uso) de padrões de desenvolvimento influenciavam os projetos nos meios digitais, reduzindo as possibilidades de designers e desenvolvedores. Com o tempo, o design para web foi cada vez mais emprestando a linguagem da mídia impressa conforme o uso de imagens e novas tipografias foi se tornando possível.

Essa viragem se deu a partir de meados da primeira década dos anos 2000 e se consolidou em fins desse mesmo período, quando os designers gráficos começaram a experimentar com a linguagem visual de seus blogs pessoais. Eu mesma participei desse movimento, me inspirando em outros blogs que também embarcaram na onda dos art directed blog posts [2] ou blogazines.

Infelizmente, na época, foi um recurso difícil de manter: exigia a instalação de um plugin bugado desenvolvido por um único programador e o projeto gráfico levava muito mais tempo para ser construído, uma vez que exigia conhecimentos razoáveis de HTML e CSS. Além disso, nenhum designer está a fim de perder horas desenvolvendo layout para um conteúdo ruim, principalmente em se tratando de um blog pessoal com o objetivo de divulgar o trabalho desse designer. Isso levava-nos a só diagramar conteúdo especial de vez enquando, ou a criar uma folha de estilo mais simples para os posts sem tanta exigência.

Em fins da década passada, essa linguagem começou a sair dos “guetos” das comunidades de designers e desenvolvedores e passou a ser adotada em matérias especiais de grandes veículos de mídia. Isso culminou no chamado “Efeito Snowfall“, por causa de um especial jornalístico homônimo publicado em 2012, que influenciou jornais de todo o mundo [3] a publicarem conteúdo especial na web com o mesmo cuidado na linguagem gráfica que esses conteúdos recebiam quando eram publicados nos cadernos impressos.

Essa linguagem gráfica, ainda que trabalhosa de ser aplicada pela vasta maioria dos usuários, influenciou e motivou o surgimento de novos serviços. O usuário leigo agora pode ampliar as possibilidades de seus conteúdos com serviços como o Medium ou o editor Gutenberg. Sem nenhum conhecimento de código, é possível usar os blocos compositivos dessas ferramentas para criar elementos tipográficos tradicionais da mídia impressa, como por exemplo boxes, títulos, gravatas, vinhetas e olhos. Mesmo os sites sem foco em conteúdo textual agora possuem ferramentas de construção automáticas, que permitem a qualquer um desenvolver um site pessoal com aspecto profissional.

Em pouco mais de dez anos, o Estilo Tipográfico da web se desenvolveu e consolidou. Qualquer usuário em posse de uma conta em um serviço de publicação de conteúdo pode ter acesso às “manhas” de um designer, sem ter de recorrer a qualquer tipo de treinamento ou conhecimento prévio maior que o do uso de uma interface gráfica, sem precisar apelar à contratação dos serviços de um profissional. O designer que trabalha na web migrou para atividades mais específicas e voltadas às plataformas. E os blogs pessoais em plataformas independentes… o meu acho que continuará aqui por mais algum tempo. 🙂

Este texto foi baseado nas reflexões que apresentei em sala de aula em 2018 na disciplina de “Webdesign” do curso de Tecnologia em Design Gráfico da UTFPR.

Notas

[1] Caso você queira passar por esta não tão agradável experiência de uso, clique aqui. Há quem argumente que possa funcionar em alguns contextos, como por exemplo na visualização de documentos PDF. Mas aí eu argumento de volta que o PDF está mais próximo do impresso que uma interface mais flexível.

[2] Note como alguns desses layouts não sobreviveram a mudanças mais profundas que inevitavelmente acontecem ao longo do tempo em um site. O único que manteve a mesma estrutura de quando foi publicado foi o do Jason Santa Maria, que mantém arquivos de versões separadas dos seus sites pessoais conforme eles foram mudando ao longo do tempo.

[3] Na Gazeta do Povo, tivemos o nosso próprio Snowfall. Participei diretamente do projeto, mas infelizmente o especial agora está disponível somente através da Wayback Machine. Levamos um Malofiej de infografia online por causa desse projeto em 2014, mas a própria listagem da edição do prêmio desse ano não está disponível no site.

Da elite para as massas: ascensão e queda da valorização do ensino superior público

Movimentos sociais de todos os tipos têm ido às ruas com alguns assuntos em comum. A educação é um tema recorrente nesses movimentos, seja diretamente — a greve do dia 15 de maio foi pela educação, mas também foi por trabalho —, seja indiretamente, como a do último domingo que, em Curitiba, culminou na remoção da faixa posta na frente do prédio histórico da UFPR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0OnzqvbIdg

Não é à toa que a educação superior — ou seja, a educação de adultos mas, principalmente, de jovens adultos — está sob ataque no Brasil. Temos “doutores demais”, segundo o ministro dos chocolatinhos, e muitos acreditam, mesmo com tantas evidências em contrário. Essa tentativa de desmonte na educação pública como um todo acontece agora porque recentemente se consolidou no Brasil o longo processo de transformação da universidade de um ambiente de elite para uma universidade de massas.

Esse é um fenômeno que aconteceu na cultura universitária de muitos países do mundo, em alguns deles com mais pressa que em outros, mas que pode ser traçado com alguma profusão de evidências desde os anos 60 e 70, mesmo no Brasil. Ecos de uma série de reformas universitárias podem ser encontrados em muitos livros de autores da época, sobretudo obviamente os que tratam de educação, e três deles me vêm à mente. Em A Questão da Universidade, Vieira Pinto denuncia as formas que a universidade é insidiosamente usada para a manutenção das relações de dominação na sociedade brasileira no início dos anos 60 [1], poucos anos antes do golpe militar. Em sua teorização dos mecanismos de funcionamento do capital cultural em um artigo cuja referência agora me escapa, Bourdieu aponta um mercado saturado de diplomas que são, mais que um marco na vida do estudante, certificados de competência. Já Umberto Eco, em seu famoso Como Se Faz Uma Tese, apresenta uma outra visão do mesmo contexto:

Mas a universidade italiana é, hoje, uma universidade de massa. A ela chegam estudantes de todas as classes, saídas dos mais diversos tipos de cursos secundários, que às vezes se matriculam em filosofia e letras clássicas depois de haver cursado uma escola técnica, onde jamais estudaram grego ou mesmo latim. E, se é verdade que o latim não tem qualquer serventia para um sem-número de atividades, em compensação ele vale muito para quem segue filosofia ou letras.

Em determinados cursos, inscrevem-se milhares de alunos. […] Muitos têm boa condição, crescidos que foram numa família culta, em contato com ambiente cultural estimulante, podendo permitir-se o luxo de viagens de estudo ou de frequentar festivais artísticos e teatrais, e mesmo visitar países estrangeiros. E há os outros. São estudantes que trabalham e passam o dia no cartório de uma cidadezinha de dez mil habitantes, onde só existem papelarias. Estudantes que, desiludidos da universidade, escolheram a atividade política e buscam outro tipo de formação mas que, cedo ou tarde, terão de submeter-se à obrigação da tese. Estudantes muito pobres que, tendo de escolher um exame, calculam o custo dos vários testes prescritos e dizem: “Este é um exame de doze mil liras”, e optam pelo mais barato. Estudantes que só vez por outra comparecem às aulas e tem dificuldade em achar uma carteira vaga na sala superlotada e que, no final da aula, desejariam falar com o professor, mas há uma fila de trinta pessoas, e têm de apanhar o trem, pois não podem ficar num hotel. Estudantes a quem nunca se explicou como procurar livros na biblioteca e em qual biblioteca […] [2].

No Brasil, esse processo da transformação de uma universidade de elite para uma universidade de massas aconteceu — ou me parece ter acontecido, pelo que posso me lembrar como estudante pouco engajada a um único tema — em pelo menos duas “ondas” na história recente. O primeiro movimento, tratado por Vieira Pinto em 1961, o da reforma — que pretendia, entre outras coisas, fazer com que a universidade se integrasse melhor com as necessidades da sociedade e incluísse o maior número de pessoas possível —, aqui foi atrasado ou retardado em função de uma série de forças em disputa deste espaço. Ao longo de três décadas, e até os anos 90, essa abertura às massas acompanhou a redemocratização e se deu principalmente em virtude de uma mudança no papel social da instituição: se antigamente os cursos superiores eram para serem feitos sem pressa, e esse momento da vida do jovem vivido como um momento de divertimentos e descobertas importantes para seu amadurecimento, luxo que alguns ainda desfrutam, hoje a universidade se vê com a função de preparar seus alunos para o tal do mercado de trabalho. Falhando nesta função, falha a universidade.

Foi apenas nos anos 2000, quando o negócio da educação se massificou ainda mais, que este movimento da elite para a massa se concretizou. Por coincidência, foi nessa primeira década que ocorreram as maiores greves da história das universidades públicas, uma no começo da referida década, e outra no início da seguinte [3]. A universidade pública foi perdendo espaço para a concorrência das particulares, que agora buscavam se desvencilhar do estigma de “uniesquina”. As uniesquinas, por sua vez, se multiplicaram e se diversificaram conforme as demandas e necessidades dos consumidores/estudantes, ajudadas por outra reforma universitária institucional, agora em governos progressistas. Uma grande massa de estudantes mais pobres chegou à universidade: na pública, através de cotas e ampliação de vagas, e também via programas de acesso ao ensino privado, como o ProUni e o FIES.

Uma vez que era inevitável a universalização da universidade, o mercado abraçou a causa da educação superior, dando-lhe novas roupagens, novos atributos, novos formatos e novos objetivos. Se antes a universidade era vista pelo pobre como um mecanismo de ascensão social, hoje ela pode talvez garantir alguma ascensão. Mas na economia dos diplomas da tal “sociedade do conhecimento” [4], a mera formação superior já não garante nada. A rápida mutação do mercado é vista como uma desvantagem das “velhas universidades”, que “não educam para o futuro”. Os cursos das públicas — muitos dos quais atualmente passando ou tendo há pouco passado por reformas curriculares — são vistos como tendo “perdido o bonde do mercado”, quando na realidade é o mercado que se canibalizou e exige cada vez mais produtividade de um trabalhador com tempo e recursos finitos, responsabilizado individualmente por sua própria formação como “empreendedor de si mesmo”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P3owEhJHRY

Meu próprio exemplo pessoal é um reflexo desse cenário. Tendo me formado em um curso chamado “Desenho Industrial”, estudei na graduação as tecnicalidades da produção gráfica e desenvolvi habilidades na composição planificada de comunicações visuais que vou levar para a vida toda. Acabei, porém, indo trabalhar com internet e interação na maior parte da minha carreira profissional depois de formada, desenvolvendo de forma independente ao longo de minha trajetória as habilidades necessárias para se lidar com isso, uma vez que não eram cobertas satisfatoriamente pelo meu curso de origem em uma conceituada universidade privada onde estudei de graça. Fiz um sem número de treinamentos formais e informais para lidar com outras tecnicalidades que me foram sendo exigidas ao longo desse processo, que já dura mais de dez anos. Desenvolvi habilidades como pesquisadora em concomitância a tudo isso porque quis muito, e por uma simples necessidade de sobrevivência, de não poder parar porque meu salário no mercado era maior (ainda que bem pouca coisa maior) que as tão disputadas bolsas do meu programa de pós-graduação. Mesmo com formação acima da média, sinto-me despreparada para as exigências permanentemente mutantes do mercado nessa indústria criativa da qual faço parte, onde tudo se desmancha no ar…

Que na educação superior se necessitam reformas, que a universidade precisa se abrir ainda mais para a sociedade, e que a educação é um fator primordial para o pleno desenvolvimento de uma sociedade, a nível pessoal e coletivo, disso não há dúvidas. As discussões a respeito são prolíficas dentro e fora desses ambientes educacionais, e os movimentos nas ruas — à esquerda e à direita, ainda que não exatamente em igualdade de condições na disputa — refletem a necessidade de se pensar um ensino superior de qualidade, onde ele acerta e onde falha. No entanto, a universidade contra a qual se luta agora é justamente aquela que nos põe a pensar nesses movimentos todos: o dos interesses de educadores e educandos, o das elites e o das massas.

Notas

[1] No Brasil, a Reforma Universitária se deu em plena ditadura militar (1968) e visava não apenas controlar ideologicamente essas instituições, mas também remodelar o antigo sistema de cátedras vigente. Essa reforma modificou a estrutura universitária de modo a acompanhar mudanças conjunturais da época, que também provocavam mudanças nas instituições do tipo em outros países, puxadas por movimentos de classe e estudantil.

[2] ECO, Umberto. Como Se Faz Uma Tese. Tradução de Gilson Sérgio Cardoso de Souza. 22ª edição. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2009. p. XIII-XIV.

[3] Esta última foi uma greve que vivi na pele, mas não do jeito engajado que agora pode parecer. Durante quatro meses do ano de 2012, fui esporadicamente ao meu campus universitário apenas para checar se meu desprendimento da realidade estava em níveis normais devido ao agravamento de um quadro de depressão mal tratado e a um relacionamento de merda. Se o mundo à minha volta dizia que a greve persistia, era porque a greve persistia. Cumpri obrigações mecanicamente e me culpei durante todo o tempo por não estar lendo o que deveria ler em Condições Ideais, nem aproveitando o tempo para ir “adiantando as coisas”, mesmo sem saber que coisas seriam essas a adiantar. Li toda a série A Song of Ice and Fire publicada até aquele momento, e um dos meus livros favoritos, Declínio e Queda do Império Romano. Persisti na fuga da realidade, uma vez que tudo estava em suspenso por tempo indeterminado. Dessa última parte específica, não me arrependo.

[4] Ou “sociedade da informação”, “sociedade cognitiva”, ou “inteligência coletiva”. Depende do autor ou do nível de ingenuidade de quem faz uso desses termos.

As forças que nos movem (in game)

Sabe aquele sentimento, quase uma dor física, que bate no cantinho do peito quando você se lembra de ter esquecido uma coisa muito importante? Foi o que senti ontem, jogando Skyrim, ao montar nas costas do dragão e lembrar que não tinha pego a Dragonbane na quest do templo de Sky Haven, uma relíquia dos Blades da época da guerra contra os dragões. Agora os Blades exigem que eu mate Paarthunax e não falam mais comigo até que isso aconteça. Eu não vou matar Paarthunax, bando de lunáticos! Felizmente, minha orientação ética nesse jogo me permite voltar lá mais tarde e afanar a katana. A próxima batalha, no entanto, vai ter de ser sem ela.

Comentando com alguns amigos sobre esse esquecimento, um deles pergunta:

Eu odeio os nords!

Acho que nenhum dos meus amigos que joga Skyrim vai com a cara dos nords. Isso me levou a pensar que em todas as vezes em que eu [1] entrava em suas cidades, inevitavelmente as comparava com centros mais “metropolitanos” como Whiterun, e lembrava daquele trecho de Monty Python em que os rebeldes judeus se perguntam o que os romanos já fizeram pelo povo deles.

O mundo onde se passa essa história é bem complexo, principalmente levando-se em conta que muitas mais histórias vêm sendo acrescidas em sua mitologia desde 1994. Os jogos, infelizmente, enquanto narrativas visuais interativas e imersivas, não são um(a) campo/área/arte (?) que vem aprofundando muito suas discussões, não pelo menos com o mesmo empenho que artes que lhes são “auxiliares” ou “complementares” fizeram quando se estabeleceram. Antes, a desculpa era que a área era muito nova, mas quase cinquenta anos se passaram desde o lançamento do primeiro jogo eletrônico. Se o cinema de alcance mais popular se pasteurizou no formato do gênero dos “filmes de superherói”, os vijogueim não ficaram muito atrás não.

Existem duas classes de “pessoas que levam videogames a sério”. Uma delas é composta por aqueles que ganham dinheiro com isso, que nutrem as arenas de batalha e as competições dos chamados e-sports [2] — o que também não dá pra dizer que representem o todo dos jogos, pois aí estamos falando de gêneros muito específicos. A segunda classe de pessoas que levam videogames a sério são os técnicos e artistas que trabalham ou sonham trabalhar na indústria e em suas áreas adjacentes [3]. Sendo dependentes de um mercado onde o dinheiro flui para a construção de mundos virtuais que dão lucro, os games muitas vezes dependem — e desculpe o eventual leitor pela linguagem aqui usada, mas optei pelo melhor descritivo possível — do público merda que possuem. Alguém precisa levar os jogos a sério, mas seus entusiastas não deixam.

Quando houve o massacre de Suzano na escola Raul Brasil — uma vez que os autores do atentado não eram negros —, uma das discussões que se levantou foi se os jogos são em alguma medida responsáveis pela violência perpetrada por jovens e adultos sexualmente frustrados do sexo masculino que se congregam em fóruns masculinistas. A primeira reação dos entusiastas, que é bastante compreensível dada a costumeira atribuição de culpa que as autoridades incompetentes costumam fazer nesses casos, é negar qualquer responsabilidade desse tipo de entretenimento na construção de uma mentalidade violenta em seu público.

Essa é uma daquelas horas em que a gente percebe que nem o entusiasta mais cheio da boa vontade e das nobres intenções se dignou a efetivamente ler as pesquisas que provam seu ponto. Por exemplo: aqui o Nerd Pai cita duas pesquisas, uma realizada pela Universidade de Oxford, e outra da Universidade de York. O blogueiro se refere à forma e condução de uma dessas pesquisas (a de Oxford) da seguinte forma:

O estudo analisou o conteúdo de vários games e levaram em consideração suas [sic] de acordo com suas classificações indicativas na Europa e nos Estados Unidos, ao mesmo tempo em que recebia relatos comportamentais dos responsáveis pelas crianças. Diferente de pesquisas prévias sobre esse assunto, os cientistas divulgaram o método usado com antecedência, garantindo mais credibilidade.

O problema é que nada disso que o blogueiro escreveu fala qualquer coisa sobre o que realmente a pesquisa levou em conta, quais perguntas ela pretendeu responder, e se as conclusões a que os pesquisadores chegaram fazem sentido. E por que a divulgação do método garante mais “credibilidade” à pesquisa? Ele apenas apontou a não existência de correlações entre violência e videogame. Na sua reportagem do fato para argumentar em favor dos jogos, o blogueiro não apresenta um único argumento além “a ciência testou e o resultado foi que não”.

Outro problema é que esse tipo de pesquisa não estabelece o que seria um “videogame violento” porque, em geral, se baseiam em correlações entre relatos de jogadores e seus tutores, e a classificação etária indicada das obras. “Videogame violento”, aqui, é o videogame que possui conteúdos que podem ser classificados como violentos. Mas um game violento é necessariamente o que me obriga a matar outros personagens? E se o ato estiver contextualizado em função de uma história? E se eu estiver, em função da história, pressionada pela escolha entre matar um personagem para conseguir um item ou azedar relações com aliados em função de minhas relações afetivas com o personagem que querem que eu mate? E se eu matar personagens inescrupulosamente mesmo sem as exigências do enredo em um experimento pessoal em função de minha consciência de que se trata de um mundo fictício aberto a certas possibilidades, onde posso desfazer cagadas carregando o penúltimo save?

Esse estudo de Oxford citado pelo Nerd Pai conseguiu uma amostra bastante respeitável: 1004 adolescentes britânicos de ambos os sexos entre 14 e 15 anos, e seus tutores. O questionário respondido pelos participantes incluía perguntas a respeito do comportamento e dos hábitos de jogo dos adolescentes nos três últimos meses, tais como quais jogos, com que frequência jogavam, com quais itens dos jogos (de uma lista de doze) eles mais se identificavam, e que nível de tolerância em discussões com outras pessoas eles suportavam. Não havia, porém um grupo de “controle”, composto por adolescentes que não têm esse hábito [4]. Colocando todos esses dados coletados em análises estatísticas, os pesquisadores criaram índices para avaliar a correlação entre eles.

Um trecho que vale destacar (note a diferença numérica significativa entre os grupos):

Studies also indicate that violent video games are regularly played by both adolescent boys (66–78%) and girls (21–33.6%), and observations from our data largely mirrored these statistics. A total of 48.8% of female participants and 68.0% of males played at least one violent game in the past month. Similarly, past research indicates that levels of daily video game play, violent game play and aggressive behaviour should all be higher in male adolescents.

Mais adiante, lá pro final, lemos isso:

Because research has shown that gender is robustly associated with both aggressive behaviour and violent game preference, the effects of violent gaming were evaluated holding variability linked to adolescent gender constant. […] In other words, these results did not support our prediction that there are statistically significant links relating violent gaming to adolescents’ aggressive behaviour.

O que a pesquisa descobriu foi uma relação clara entre a preferência masculina pelo tipo de jogos que se classificam como violentos, mas essa descoberta foi deixada de lado porque esta seria uma preferência “natural” já antes observada em pesquisas do tipo. Ou seja: os videogames não influenciam na inoculação de violência na mente dos jovens, mas alguns tipos de jovens preferem certos tipos de jogos. Hummm…

O outro link citado pelo Nerd Pai é da Universidade de York, sobre uma pesquisa cujo artigo está em um periódico da Elsevier sob paywall [5]. Essa pesquisa, feita com uma amostra três vezes maior que a da anterior, usa o conceito de “priming“, que é quando os jogadores relacionam conteúdos ficcionais do game com o mundo real a ponto de modificar seu comportamento.

Para conduzir uma parte dessa pesquisa — bem menos estatística e quantitativa que a outra —, os pesquisadores botaram sua amostra para jogar dois tipos de jogo: em um deles, os jogadores encarnavam um carro evitando colisão com caminhões; no outro, os jogadores assumiam o papel de um rato fugindo de um gato. Depois da jogatina, os participantes eram apresentados a várias imagens (objetos e seres vivos) e tinham de nomeá-los. Os pesquisadores então mediam o tempo de resposta dos jogadores, porque segundo eles:

“If players are ‘primed’ through immersing themselves in the concepts of the game, they should be able to categorise the objects associated with this game more quickly in the real world once the game had concluded. Across the two games we didn’t find this to be the case. Participants who played a car-themed game were no quicker at categorising vehicle images, and indeed in some cases their reaction time was significantly slower.” [grifos meus]

Achou estranho? Achou um pouco complicado a forma como resolveram testar e medir essa hipótese do “priming” e sua correlação com comportamento violento? Achou um salto um pouco alto demais e pouco confiável de relacionamento entre os construtos teóricos e a realidade? Achou fraco? Pois é, mas isso porque não viu outro estudo correlacionado e também reportado nesse press release. Vamos a ele: a intenção aqui era, partindo do pressuposto de que o grau de “priming” de um jogo tem a ver com seu grau de realismo gráfico, os pesquisadores fizeram dois grupos de participantes jogarem dois jogos de luta, um deles com ragdoll physics aplicada e outro sem, em um cenário realista. Depois, os pesquisadores fizeram os participantes relacionarem palavras e relataram que não houve qualquer padrão detectável nas respostas dos jogadores no segundo jogo. A intenção aqui pode ter sido realizar uma medição indireta das influências do jogo através de um método lúdico (o jogo de palavras), mas talvez o que essa pesquisa tenha descoberto mesmo é a habilidade dos jogadores de formarem palavras.

O que é possível concluir com essas pesquisas é que, com toda a certeza, é muito difícil medir com precisão o grau de engajamento emocional dos jogadores com os seus jogos. Alguns estudos em interação e cognição podem dar pistas melhores sobre como as interfaces influenciam no nosso comportamento. Porque elas, sim, nos influenciam. Construímos e somos construídos pelos nossos artefatos. Guns don’t kill people; I kill people — with guns. Como não admitir uma mínima influência deles sobre nós? Mesmo livros de ficção — aqueles compêndios encriptados em linguagem abstrata e impressos em lâminas de celulose, que são decodificados através de um conhecimento prévio de linguagem aprendida pelos que se aventuram a lê-los — são queimados e banidos pelo que a mensagem codificada dentro deles é capaz de fazer a pessoas.

Os videogames se querem uma “arte” séria. Infelizmente, boa parte dos seus entusiastas não está disposto a uma discussão aprofundada. Uma “boa” crítica de videogame, segundo esses caras, deve levar em conta os feitos técnicos e gráficos da peça (sua função estética) e sua capacidade de fazer o jogador perder a noção do tempo (o flow). O selo de “arte” do jogo viria da infindável equipe de artistas e consultores que contribuíram para a construção daquela experiência. Para além disso, estraga o brinquedo dos minino.

Videogames são legais porque permitem a muitas pessoas viverem situações semelhantes em primeira pessoa de forma diferente. A diferença de engajamento de quem joga e interage vivendo no “mundo do jogo” para quem decifra símbolos e converte uma história narrada e vivida por terceiros a partir de linguagem abstrata é bastante grande. A principal qualidade dessa mídia não pode ser ignorada da análise séria pelo medo que seus entusiastas têm de fazer algumas perguntas do jeito certo — ou, pelo menos, imbuído das ferramentas certas para análise.

Notas


[1] Jogando agora como khajit “colecionador”, mas que nunca teve problemas com a justiça, e tem amigos importantes por toda a província, daí sua incrível coleção.


[2] IMHO, são esportes enquanto competição, mas não enquanto uso do corpo como força propulsora. Pra mim, tá no mesmo nível das competições de automobilismo, sem a desvantagem da possibilidade de morrer num acidente trágico: não é esporte. E tá tudo bem.


[3] Por “áreas adjacentes” quero dizer a gamificação e a aplicação de jogos na educação, e gente que trabalha produzindo interfaces e softwares, e que são quem acaba indo para as arenas de discussão séria, a.k.a. academia. Quanto a aplicação dos jogos na educação, tenho minhas ressalvas. Podem ser muito interessantes, como a literatura especializada crescente vem apontando. Mas em geral, onde vi ser aplicado na prática, ou eles são “muito jogos” — no sentido de que parecem distrações em meio a um conteúdo maçante, onde o estudante vai ficar muito bom em atirar em navinhas, mas não necessariamente no conteúdo que está sendo abordado —, ou são “muito educacionais” — são material didático comum, mas chamados de interativos porque vêm com botões para apertar. “Jogos educacionais” enquanto uma expressão que queira realmente dizer “um jogo que estimula o aprendizado” é bem difícil encontrar. Geralmente, a educação através dos jogos se dá sem querer, quando a gente aprende o idioma da interface em razão da necessidade ou quando capta algumas curiosidades históricas em jogos remotamente baseados na realidade. Não estou querendo implicar que não é possível criar jogos educacionais que realmente sejam jogos educacionais. O problema é que na prática a teoria é outra.


[4] Talvez seja uma escolha dos pesquisadores, ou um problema semelhante ao que foi encontrado na condução das pesquisas de Gary Wilson sobre pornografia: era simplesmente impossível encontrar homens que não fizessem uso dela para participar do estudo.


[5] A intenção aqui não é de análise aprofundada, e sim a de fazer alguns comentários bastante rasos — mas um pouco menos rasos. Por isso vou me ater a apenas comentar o material disponível.

A humanidade própria das mulheres

Estou lendo a tese do Rodrigo sobre Vieira Pinto e o tema central, de forma bem rasa, é trabalho e educação na interação com o mundo. Em determinado momento, falando sobre trabalho e amanualidade, ele cita Vieira Pinto: “nunca a ação do homem na natureza é individual, solitária e pessoal, mas sempre possui caráter social […] não se trata de uma ação simplesmente localizada no tempo mas de uma ocorrência histórica”. Essa é uma citação de um dos livros que eu mais gosto do Vieira Pinto, Ciência e Existência (1969).

Interessante como os homens se colocam fora da natureza quando falando sobre a sua relação com o meio. Ao mesmo tempo que, teoricamente, quando eles falam em “homem” aqui querem dizer “toda a humanidade”, a humanidade conforme pensada por homens é toda hominificada. O processo de humanização do ser humano é por vezes chamado na obra do Vieira Pinto (e de outros) de “hominização”. “Humano” e “homem” são palavras que possuem o mesmo radical. Na conceituação dos homens, apenas com muito esforço, as mulheres são humanas. Para humanizar as mulheres aos olhos dos homens, elas precisam se “hominizar”: desaparecer com todas as características que as tornam mulheres.

As mulheres, com seus ciclos e processos biológicos tão óbvios e aparentes, são desconcertantes para os tão tecnológicos homens. Os homens agem na natureza de fora para dentro, enquanto as mulheres são a própria natureza feita humana e consciente. Não à toa, as autodenominadas “teorias feministas” mais bem-sucedidas da academia fazem questão de deixar de fora os aspectos ontológicos da existência das mulheres. Tais teorias insistem na cisão entre mente e corpo, cercando o pensamento feminista dentro de um gueto em relação ao “pensamento geral”, de modo que questões que já foram “resolvidas” em outras áreas do conhecimento levam as estudiosas do assunto a viverem de bater cabeça — e a construírem grandes currículos e bibliografias em cima disso.

Uma vez que essas idéias atingiram o mainstream e se posicionaram como “a nova onda do feminismo” a partir dos anos 1990, nenhum debate para além disso é permitido ou levado a sério. O rótulo do “essencialismo” é colocado sobre qualquer tentativa de apontar as ações das mulheres sobre si e sobre seu meio enquanto mulheres, e diferentes dos homens. Se diferenciar dos homens na busca pelo status de humanidade não é permitido — ou é, no mínimo, mal visto. Do feminismo se exige que seja um movimento pela “igualdade”. A “diversidade” só é permitida quando invade e apaga a mulheridade.

Sobre Vieira Pinto, tenho editado alguns trechos da obra dele e publicado no blog Sem Camundongos. Vale dar uma olhada.