Construction of the discourse on dengue fever in the media

The aim of this paper was to understand how the media in the state of Pernambuco portrays dengue fever, a disease that is affecting more and more Brazilians. Taking the explosive epidemic of 2002 as the starting point, we tried to understand the effects of meaning produced by the press in a comparative discourse strategy analysis used in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. We selected 291 articles and notes published in the Jornal do Commercio (Recife-Brazil), on the situation of this viral disease in the state of Pernambuco in the four years. We also analysed dengue fever surveillance reports published by the health department of Pernambuco. To complement discourse analysis, we proposed the construction of a medialogy diagram, a graphic representation that tries to establish a relationship between newspaper texts and number cases of dengue reported. Results indicate that media coverage generally followed the development of dengue fever cases, with more news published during the epidemic periods and showing the appeal of the illness as a mass media phenomenon despite its risk to the Brazilian people.