Em busca dos olhares: imagens fotográficas de crianças e adolescentes em situação de risco na cidade de São Paulo

Abstract

This dissertation intends to analyze photographic images of children and teen-agers in situation of risk, reported by the newspaper Folha de São Paulo from 2007 to 2011, in order to understand the representations of this social segment as elaborated by the press media. Also analyzed are the ways of seeing of the youngsters that participated in the search and who live similar situations to those represented in the images. Initially, the methodology used to select the images from the newspaper s records is presented, and their classification by themes, expression and contents, is dealt with. A reading of the images was undertaken together with the adolescents who live in shelter houses as well as those circulating by the social work service. On the presupposition that the newspaper contributes to the building of the social imagery, we discuss the irruption of imagery in human nature and in the relation between the media and social representations. The presence of the imagery is pointed to in the journalistic production and reception regarding news and images, and also in the formulation of the social representations by the media. Further analyzed are the context of the photographic image production and its recurrent patterns based on themes and spatial and body attributes that impose meanings (visible or invisible) to the representations. Complementally, the youngsters interpretations of the newspaper images and the images they have of themselves are revealed