Media Uses of the Word “Populism” During the Fourth Brazilian Republic (1946-1964), and their Contemporary Echoes
This article is devoted to the uses of the word “populism” in a major Brazlian newspaper, Jornal do Brasil, between 1945 and 1964. During this democratic parenthesis between two dictatorships, the category appears to designate an undue way to adopt the urban popular masses as a political base. From the outset, “populism” was polysemous and became a tool for disqualification on both the right and the left, especially against the central political actor of the period, the labor camp inherited from Getúlio Vargas. The study of the period 1945-1964 is then used to reflect on the current uses of “populism” in Brazil, in order to understand the political and historical stakes of its media use, both to qualify the far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro and the left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
- Brazil
- populism
- 1945-1964
- press
- Jair Bolsonaro
- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva