Science and Technology in Brazilian TV: an analysis of Globo TV programing

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze how S&T issues appears on the TV Globo, the channel with the largest audience in Brazil. The methodology of "constructed week" was used to compose a sample of two weeks (14 days), representative of six months in 2013. We recorded and watched each day, a total of 336 hours. Through a content analysis, we found out that science appeared in 7.3% of TV Globo broadcast during the period analyzed and was in several television categories, from TV news to advertising, from soap operas to talk shows. Science was more related to issues of Medicine and Health. Scientists and experts were important sources of information, but citizens were heard about these issues as well. However, we found out that scientists were less represented on TV - and, when they appeared, there were more men than women scientists. In advertising,the most frequent television category in our corpus, science was used as a way to enforce credibility to the product, highlighting the social role of science.