Media construction of pseudo-events: Lula da Silva at the Portugal’s parliament during a historic annual celebration

Abstract

The Carnation Revolution (25th April 1974) has changed the course of Portugal, leading it to transition from an autocratic to a democratic Government. Every year, celebrations are conducted at the national Parliament. In 2023, it counted with another guest: Lula da Silva, Brazil’s ongoing president. Considering the notion of cultural memory and media construction of social reality through media events, this article notes Lula da Silva’s presence and exceptional address was portrayed on newspaper front pages of several journalistic media outlets. Therefore, it aims at understanding meaning and discourse production with Lula da Silva’s visit to Portugal on the 25th April 2023 through media coverage and first page highlight. Lula da Silva is noticed by the front pages under analysis as a controversial, entertaining, and eventful celebrity linked to specific positioned actors that is invited to the Parliament and prompts indirectly and directly discontentment and, at the same time, support. Also, it discusses how such spotlight over Lula da Silva turned that visit and Parliament’s address it into a pseudo-event. Adopting a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis approach, this research work intends to offer a multimodal eye upon those front pages and critically reflect on populism, coloniality, cultural memory, and journalism.

Introduction

In Portugal, the 25th April 1974 is annually celebrated since then, with a national holiday and Government official celebrations with several national politicians and personalities linked to that date in some degree. Also known as Carnation Revolution, the 25th April Revolution gathered the Armed Forces Movement and popular groups across the country, with its epicentre in Lisbon. Such gatherings led to the discharge of Marcello Caetano from the government and his international asylum (Rosas, 2018). The year of 1976 marked a slight stabilisation in the national politics, with the foundation of a Constitution and the National Constitutional Assembly, empowering the first free national elections and some rights, such as freedom of expression and press (Cerezales, 2008).

Drawing on the sociocultural memory construction through media and discourse (Erll, 2008), since media outlets’ editorial boards approach events and empower them through referent selection and construction (Carvalho, 2008), this article pays attention to Portugal’s media coverage on 25th April 2023. The study it includes emerges from a preliminary analysis where it was detected that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, official visit to Portugal was under highlight by the press in several media outlets. This president can be akin to a celebrity politician (Street, 2019) due to his past Brazil’s government mandates, strategic communication and marketing work, closeness to the masses, media succeeding approaches, and knowability in the country and many across the globe.

Amongst other purposes, the week of his visit included his presence in several events. Two of them were: Chico Buarque’s ceremony concerning the attribution of Prémio Camões (Camões Prize) in Lisboa, an award the recognises Portuguese-speaking artists for their oeuvre (Luís Vaz de Camões is the name of a remarkable Portuguese poet from the 16th century); and, as an international State president, the exceptional attendance of the official commemoration of the revolution at the Portugal’s Parliament. Belonging to Brazilian’s Labour Party, that president can be political-ideologically akin to the Portuguese prime-minister to date (Socialist Party), both symbolically representing an alternative against the advance of far-right candidates on the Parliament with an increased number of seats on the last 2024’s election (Secretaria-Geral do Ministério da Administração Interna, n.d.).

Bearing the multimodal and discursive strengths concomitant to newspaper front pages (e.g., Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998; Pinto-Coelho, 2008; Serafis and Tseronis, 2023; van Dijk, 2017), this article seeks to answer two research questions. The first is: how is Lula da Silva’s presence at and address of the Portuguese Parliament on 25th April 2023 multimodally and discursively represented by press journalism’s front pages released on that precise day? The second asks: how it can be akin to a pseudo-event?

Theoretical framework

Proceeded by a military dictatorship (1928–1933), the New State (Estado Novo) officially begun in 1933, with António de Oliveira Salazar as the president of the Ministers Council, opening his tracks to govern Portugal within an autocracy. Among other characteristics, some of the regime’s were: the leader cult, promotion and coercive imposition of the identity principle ‘God, Nation, and Family’, political persecution of anti-regime citizens, ¹ and maintenance of an empire and its colonies (Rosas, 2018).

That empire recalled to a past one, which included Brazil from 1500 until 1825, and to memory construction. Famously designed by Gilberto Freyre, the ‘lusotropicalism theses’ endorse ‘the Lusitanian exceptionality’ and are responsible for ‘the fabrication of a renewed colonial mythology after the decade of 1950’ (Cardina, 2023: 31). Lusotropicalism points to an ‘ideology’ constructed by Portugal towards its ex-colonies as a symbolic dominator along with a comfortable way to approach them through speech and acts (Sousa, 2021: 11). In respect to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s, the Portugal’s president-in-office, in one of his speeches, it is heightened ‘a better democracy, that is not subject to “the pure Portuguese myth, the undominated caste, of the old and new privileged people”’ (p. 21). Sousa (2017) argues ‘portugality’ as a concept linked to a Portuguese national identity, based on a mythological power and its colonial, standardising and globalising forces. The author argues such term dates to the New State period, rekindling nationalist meanings and such country identity.

Any media outlet expresses certain identities, according to several contexts they mobilise to create texts and people through their interaction with them (e.g., Bucholtz and Hall, 2005; Rodrigues, 2007; Sousa, 2017; van Leeuwen, 2022). Several identities may be expressed through a certain style: social, individual, role, lifestyle, national or editorial. For example, since media are endowed with references to past events, construct memory about them and help to foster a sociocultural memory (Erll, 2008), Soutelo (2016) underlines a ‘neoconversative cultural hegemony’ through the analysis of the Portuguese press during the decades of 1980 and 1990 related to the celebration of the 25th April 1974 Revolution. Hence, acknowledging the importance of mental and social representations and their contexts (e.g., political, historical, economic) that produce discourse (van Dijk, 2017), newspapers and magazines draw on previous knowledge, meanings, and discourses to construct news stories, according to their social, cultural and historic contexts. Along with viewers and readers interactions in a higher or lower degree, they turn themselves into media events. Therefore, media practices produce discourse, based in signs’ (referents) choices.

Media texts become visible through their sign choices. These point to other signs, helping one to encode a certain experience in a certain way, recalling the past, and living a current experience semiotically transformed, through many meaning modes, which constructs how individually and collectively a given past event under media editorial choices to produce, diffuse, and, possibly, reproduce (Erll, 2008; Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998; Pinto-Coelho, 2010; van Leeuwen, 2022). They necessarily undergo recontextualisation (van Leeuwen, 2008): the careful selection of what is said and expressed through certain visual and verbal resources (inherently multimodal) create new representations about something and/or someone, which are materialised through the media.

Media inform people about what they are not aware about, constructing reality, through specific ways of doing so. News construction operates upon social reality and, therefore, it determines what is relevant and people need to know about (Tuchman, 1978). While living it, they construct it. Once events are selected and worked joining such construction, negativity here interferes, due to its strategic use pointed at attention and sales (Arango-Kure et al., 2014; Ribeiro, 2023a; Skey, 2021).

Those can be of several types, such as pseudo-events. According to Boorstin (1992), ‘its occurrence is arranged for the convenience of the reporting or reproducing media’, and ‘[i]ts success is measured by how widely it is reported’ (p. 11). The author mentions its 1) planning, 2) planting, 3) in, through reporting, and/or for its reproduction intentionality, ambiguous character, 4) and a self-prophetic side, that is, it naturally becomes something important. Even if the event relates to political issues, those may be turned into lighter issues. Beyond ‘publicity’ capability and, taking from Ytreberg, ‘eventfulness’, Skey (2021: 159) states that pseudo-events ‘refer to fabrication’, since ‘they are designed by and for the media in order to capture attention in an increasingly competitive media environment’. Considering media conglomerates with strong interest in revenues above journalism quality (e.g., Duarte et al., 2023), celebrities here assume a powerful role, including to be topics within social media (e.g., Ribeiro, 2023a). Their link to entertainment is recognised by authors such as Street (2019), regarding their mediatisation and acknowledgement as so, sustained by fan communities and media and entertainment industries. Cabrera et al. (2011) write that ‘[p]seudo-happenings are ideal for the work of journalists, as they provide drama, generate questioning and are intelligible and dynamic and can be easily socialize’ (p. 89).

Some research on media production suggests some political media events link to theatricality and spectacularisation (e.g., Baptista et al., 2021; Rebelo, 2021), and some to pseudo-events (e.g., Cabrera et al., 2011; Street, 2019). Certain politicians are akin to ‘celebrity politicians’ (Street, 2019): linked to their mediatisation and of their policies and ideas, sometimes more know by his/her/their personalisation and, then, his/her/their persona, within populist contexts, and behaving more or less explicitly in a certain way through acts, speech, and other communication forms. These may be seized by media, accounting the negativity and its capability of attracting attention and sales (e.g., Arango-Kure et al., 2014), and foster populism (e.g., Baptista et al., 2021; Prior, 2022). This goes in line with one of the ‘parallelisms’ between then and now defined by Fernando Rosas, in a book relating ‘Salazar’ to ‘fascisms’ (Rosas, 2018: 287–298). One of them corresponds to the rise of ‘populism’ and ‘extreme right-wing’.

Briefly, populism consists in ‘an antagonism between a corrupt elite and the pure and incorruptible people represented by a charismatic leader’ (Serrano, 2023: 5). Following Baptista (2021: 206), media practices that aim at tackling populism may fall into ‘a contrary effect’. The author points to a ‘cultural production of ignorance’ that implies ‘two main discursive strategies’: (1) doubt exponentiation via data manipulation to ignite ‘systemic distrust’, and (2) controversy promotion via enemy fabrication. Rebelo (2021) also shows how the portrayal of the Portuguese president in exhibitions kissing people always with a camera pointed at him or a journalist that promotes an investigative journalism programme in a ‘theatrical’ manner may promote populism.

Greatly important to any newspaper, front pages comprise several affordances. In the words of Ledin and Machin (2018), they correspond to semiotic ‘products’ presented through a ‘surface to brand the product’ (p. 11). Inserted within ‘semiotic materials’ (the respective editions), affordances represent ‘ideas and assumptions’ that ‘shape communication and social behaviour’ (pp. 29–30). The literature point to some of them (e.g., Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998; Ledin and Machin, 2018; Pinto-Coelho, 2008; Ribeiro, 2023a; Serafis and Tseronis, 2023): (1) to inform potential viewers and readers about current topics editorial boards decide that are the most relevant, in a seductive way aiming at sales; (2) to engage celebrities and mediatised figures to gather attention and increase circulation, but also attract advertising entities, in a way to strengthen advertising-based traditional model; (3) to persuade interactors to adopt certain ideas and/or habits, which may impact on their attitudes, behaviours, and practices; (4) to create affect and fortify communities surrounding the media they represent, and contribute to their sustainability.

Despite their geographic dimension, Brazil and Portugal ecosystems encompass certain similar characteristics. In light of Oliveira and Castro (2023, p. 141), Brazilian ‘ecosystem’ is characterised by ‘disinformation involving editing, distribution, and monetization as political-electoral strategies in the Brazilian scenario’, which leads to ‘the importance of the role played by cybernetic technology in the individualization of information through algorithmic segmentation of audience profiles’. In Portugal, political agents and related initiatives and groups linked to far-right ideals (Prior, 2022) have been linked to hate speech promotion, in times where it is been on a rise, mostly online. A lack of Internet self and hetero-regulation in the country is among the reasons for such phenomenon (Cádima et al., 2024). In light of recent reports (e.g., Duarte et al., 2023), Portugal’s media landscape is characterised by a set of neoliberal principles emerging from media groups organised in a horizontal concentration, attempting to generate accumulation, profit, and increased editorial pressures, along with the precariousness of journalism and labour conditions.

Research design

This article encompasses an exploratory study, aiming at detail richness and critical reflection, therefore, adopting an abductive, interpretative, and critical approach. The sample of criteria nature consists of the 25th April 2023’s Diário de Notícias, i, Jornal de Notícias, and Público front pages. These four daily newsapapers follow a selection from nine others (weekly newspapers and a newsmagazine) that featured Lula da Silva’s visit during the week of 25th of April 2023 in some way, from a pre-analysis of 19 that explicitly approached the 1974’s historic event.

These media outlets share several editorial differences. Diário de Notícias is a newspaper with more than 160 years of history, having noticed events such as the 25th April 1974. A more recent one, having received a worldwide design award (Lusa, 2011) and currently joining a media conglomerate (Ferreira, 2022) with another newspaper linked to ‘center-right’ views (Cavaleiro, 2021), i is another newspaper. Jornal de Notícias has more than 130 years of history and remains one of the most read newspapers in the country. Público is also another widely read newspaper, especially regarding digital circulation (APCT, n.d.). Medium historicity, circulation, and editorial identity were then three criteria considered.

Those texts were subjected to a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) approach. This choice relies on the need to analyse not only what is explicit on the headlines, images, or their content dimension of what is explicit, but also to other resources that may be under interpretation in light of the theoretical and empirical literature and relate to other texts and semiotic resources behind it. Taking from Machin and Mayr (2023), these authors contend it is suitable to comprehend the reproduction of social and cultural inequalities through many modes of meaning-making and how they operate in certain contexts through text production, more precisely through its language. In concern to the texts under study, such methodological approach is justified by the goal pointed at exploring Lula da Silva’s representation, his visit to Portugal and announced presence and speech at the Parliament, as well as to unveil and discuss the potential repercussions related to it on the front pages.

This method allows a comprehension on: (1) how semiotic resources, functioning as modes, relate to one another, and allow the emergence of texts (newspapers’ first pages); (2) how they can be understood under certain contexts and, therefore, contribute to discourse production; (3) and to critically reflect on several social issues. According to the authors, ‘[b]eing critical here (. . .) involves looking at how actual participants, actions, intentions and processes are represented in texts’ (p. 11).

The research questions that guide this research work are as follows:

• How is Lula da Silva’s presence at the Portuguese Parliament on 25th April 2023 multimodally and discursively represented by press journalism’s front pages released on that exact day?;

• How can it be akin to a pseudo-event?

It is hypothesised that Lula da Silva’s appearance at the Parliament on the 25th April 1974 became a media pseudo-event, arranged by the media within favourable contexts and mobilising different semiotic resources, seizing his past mediatisation and celebrity character to gather attention and sales. The pseudo-event suggested from a pre-analysis is Lula da Silva’s Parliament’s attendance and address on the 25th of April 2023, for the revolution’s celebration, highlighting the inseparability of a foreigner State president presence and Parliament address (Lusa & Público, 2023), as well as his highlight instead of the commemorations and their developments themselves. It may be akin to a fabricated event within a competitive media system, in order to foster negativity, sales, media and social attention, and advertisers.

Making use of contributions of several theoretical and empirical literature (e.g., Carvalho, 2008; Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998; Ledin and Machin, 2018; Machin and Mayr, 2023; Pinto-Coelho, 2008; Ribeiro, 2023a, 2023b; Ribeiro and Cabecinhas, 2023; van Dijk, 2017), a framework analysis was designed and applied to those texts. There are three main resources: visual, verbal, and contextual. On a side note, the visual resources relate to the other resources, since they are all necessarily multimodal, working in an interconnected way. For instance, participants may be represented through graphic image and written text, conveying the interpretation of certain discursive strategies.

Starting from the visual resources, participants are understood as the ones visually seen from images. Background and objects relate to what surrounds or engages them in a certain visual composition. Modality and colour point to the degree of closeness from reality, either low (closer) or high (further), and the colours chosen and their customisation within the visual compositions that allow the emergence of texts. Actions and indexical links relate to some possible processes: emotional, what is revealed by oneself; mental, what is suggested to be thought and sensed; verbal, what is clearly said and expressed linked to what is visible within the visual composition and is allowed to be interpret; and material, what actions can be identified within the text. The image angle relates to its horizontality, verticality, or obliqueness, promoting a closer or an open-wide approach with a certain registered eye within what and who is represented (gaze). Information value consist of how information is organised within the page and allows one to understand the value given to it. For instance, the relations centre-margin, left-right, ideal-real, given-new, and top-bottom. Salience makes one’s analysis clearer through the size of the resources all over the page and how they arranged to highlight ones more and other less. The last resource, delimitation, responds to the separation of an element on the page, which can be either more or less separated, impacting on how it is highlighted.

Moving to the verbal resources, vocabulary and grammar are here accounted, since they are present on the headlines and the articulation of the words sustain the construction of the identification through written text. The verbs used also recall to a past or to project a future or how they personalise oneself. Actors are also here applied since they can be represented in a certain way through word and sentence construction. Stylistic devices work as important resources due to their rhetoric capacity. Metaphor or image are among them. Subjects correspond to how resources are used to present a certain written media story and, finally, discursive strategies correspond to the unveiling of hidden ways of do it and position the media outlet within a certain ideology. Ideologies may be comprehended through discourse analysis, since they constitute part of how texts may be discursive practices, meaning not all texts and discourses are ideological (e.g., van Dijk, 2017).

The third set of resources involve the mobilisation of additional knowledge to interpret what is analysable through the semiotic resources and produce discourse. Intertextual analysis helps any researcher to get a more attentive overview of certain phenomena represented by a certain medium by comparing one text to other supplemental texts. Media context refers to how a certain medium works like, which entity is supported by it, and how it deals at a national and international levels. Sociocultural context and historic contexts provide a better understanding of social and cultural phenomena, as well as their relationship with historic issues.

Analysis and discussion

Diário de Notícias

(https://www.vercapas.com/capa/arquivo/diario-de-noticias/2023-04-25.html)

Notably highlighted, the 25th April Revolution takes the most space on the cover, which may be justified by the historicity of this specific newspaper, founded in 1864. Diário de Notícias was found in 1864, having covered remarkable occurrences, such as the 25th of April 1974, contributing to media cultural memory and historiography. Its media stories referred to historic events, having passed through a monarchy, republic, dictatorship, and now a democracy. This medium appears to recall several elements from a past remarkable event for the country, through the ability media may develop with their approaches on do it. It presents ‘[w]hat has to change before the 50 YEARS OF THE REVOLUTION’. Scrolling down the page, it is possible to read: ‘CAMÕES PRIZE/ Lula has awarded Chico Buarque: ‘It was a beautiful party, man!’. This utterance recalls the song Tanto Mar, in which it is included. Following an interventionist approach pointed at Portugal’s developments towards a democracy (Rendeiro, 2020), the song was launched following the Portuguese revolution, when Brazil was under a dictatorship, originally in 1975 with a later adapted version in 1978.

Suggestively growing and occupying their space on the page, the carnations with red flowers and green stems represent the fought for freedoms and hope respectively (Heller, 2014/2000). The red colour is also underlined and salient, as it has become a symbolical referent to the revolution along with the carnations (e.g., Ramos, 2006). The participants are collectively represented by the carnation, which suggests the historic background of military and people joining them to throw down the regime of Marcello Caetano. Other related utterances suggest ‘49 personalities’ that indicate ‘remaining challenges 49 years later’. Even though military and people who gather for the revolution appear to be represented through carnations, the actors under the limelight are several ‘personalities’. Akin to an elite, they get an upper position on this newspaper’s first page, recalling celebrities as sources that may capture the viewer or reader’s attention. Elites and power are connected to one another since the first ones have at their disposition more opportunities to make decisions on what should be said, goals, or even what is promoted and arranged by media visuality (e.g., van Dijk, 2008).

At an intertextual level, the mentioned challenges may relate to the ‘aliened parenting’, since during the New State ‘family’ was one of the main principles institutionally and socially promoted and imposed by the Government, or lack of support to criminal investigation the headline above reports: ‘WITHOUT METADATA, FORGET ABOUT SERIOUS CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION’. This statement is authored by Ricardo Sá Fernandes, lawyer, politician, and ex-State Secretary for Tax Affairs, retrieved from a podcast by Diário de Notícias.

i

(https://www.vercapas.com/capa/arquivo/i/2023-04-25.html)

Released in this century, in 2009, i features the same media conglomerate as the newspaper Nascer do SOL since 2022 (Ferreira, 2022), which is linked to ‘center-right’ views (Cavaleiro, 2021). Without forgetting its design award, this newspaper invests on design functionality (van Leeuwen, 2022) to convey certain political views. For instance, looking back in 2017, when Lula da Silva was imprisoned, the newspaper presented a cover on the 13th July including the current president in a squid shape (‘Lula’ means ‘squid’ in English) (SAPO Jornais e Revistas, 2017).

Saliently visible, Brazil’s president is here involved in a visual composition intendedly conceived: on the top of a military vehicle with his hands raised almost like in a divine way, attempting to get popular reception in leader cult style, evoking other dictators from the past (e.g., Spiegel International, 2008). Visual composition’s modality is high, considering it moves away from reality, making use of a photo editing arrangement to convey a certain ideology, revealed through the discourse of ‘de-legitimation’ (Carvalho, 2008: 170) of Lula da Silva: the ex-convict president cult. Such discursive strategy downsizes certain attitudes, behaviours and practices and may be linked to politicisation, which consists of turning certain topics as concrete political issues (e.g., Carvalho, 2008; Ribeiro, 2023b).

The 2022–2024’s Portuguese Government was assumed by the Socialist Party, which is close to the Labour Party, the one Lula da Silva is the current leader, in terms of political ties. Carnations and Portugal flags surround him. At the same time, it is suggested a movement towards the direction of the viewer, aiming at a reality that is close to Portuguese people and residents in Portugal.

‘A 25th APRIL LIKE NEVER SEEN BEFORE’ is the main headline, followed by an utterance below expressing ‘a surrounding controversy’ related to that president’s ‘presence at the Parliament’. This character of exclusivity points to something new and different, stressing the negative side of it, as well as the intended construction of an event by the medium. Such uniqueness gets reinforced by the customised adjective that medium adopts to each edition on the top of the page. Here, in free translation, ‘inultrapassável’ means ‘insurmountable’.

The president’s ‘reception’ with ‘carnations and Ukraine flags’ also points to his positioning on the Russia–Ukraine conflict, of which he had argued for a need to negotiate peace conditions (Agência Reuters, 2023), boosting a discursive polarisation of the actors involved (e.g., van Dijk, 2017): on the one hand, those who support the Revolution and freedoms; on the other hand, those who support Ukraine on that conflict. Appealing to a regime change, these last ones are mostly represented by the extreme-right wing party with parliamentary seats, who showed indignation towards Lula da Silva’s speech at the Parliament on the 25th April 2023, with banners such as ‘ENOUGH OF CORRUPTION’ and ‘A THIEF BELONGS IN PRISION’ (SIC Notícias, 2023), relating to his past imprisonment and case developments. However, no matter their affiliation, other parties support and politicians defend the revolution’s celebration and support Ukraine on that conflict, including the 2023’s Government. Lula da Silva’s statements on the aforementioned war are classified by the front page as ‘controversial’, emphasising the sense of ‘controversy’ related to his official visit to Portugal and Parliament’s presence. In the image, the president seats in a place that refers to the one military occupied during the day of 25th April 1974, while taking command of the revolution, with the license number that pointed to the one used on that day and evacuated and took Marcello Caetano to a plane to his asylum. The red mark below the license number ‘A25A’ points to the Association 25th April (Associação 25 de Abril, n.d.), founded in 1982 by military forces, and suggesting a medium positioning on their side in favour of the revolution.

Moreover, the surrounding headlines refer to current issues involving the Portugal’s socio-political landscape. The cover mentions the ‘celebration of the 49 years of democracy on politics, health, and education’, having invited three different personalities to approach these topics, two of them belonged to ex-right-wing governments and one to a past left-wing government. Memory and comparison are here implied with the ‘housing in 1974 and today’, followed by the limelight of ‘the great New State and democratic regime’s oeuvres’. In Portuguese grammar, using the adjective before the name may suggest a subjective positioning of qualification (Prokopyshyn, 2009). In this case, the comparison suggests there were ‘great oeuvres’ related to the ‘regime’ that was not ‘democratic’. Moving to other headlines, it is pointed an interview to an academic that is a demographer, with two statements under bold regarding the ‘very unrecommendable position’ of the country in what concerns to ‘equality or education’ and population age, since ‘Portugal was one of the less aged [countries] in Europe for the worst reasons’ during the decades of 1960 and 1970. The country is then globally engaged within negative aspects, mostly towards the present, comparing to the New State.

Jornal de Notícias

(https://www.vercapas.com/capa/arquivo/jornal-de-noticias/2023-04-25.html)

Likely to Diário de Notícias, currently belonging to the same media conglomerate (Global Media Group), Jornal de Notícias belongs to Portugal’s newspaper history. Founded in 1888, it covered many events throughout time, contributing to Portugal’s cultural memory and historiography. Concerning its press circulation, it is among the most read newspapers in the country (APCT, n.d.)

With respect to Lula da Silva, his name appears in a link with the ‘authorities’ concern’ on the demonstrations surrounding his ‘presence’. The politician is represented as ‘activated’ (Machin and Mayr, 2023: 153), since he takes a place of action and is named as the reason for other actions as a result of so. An extra emphasis is put on the ‘authorities’, who are ‘concerned’. This goes in line with the ‘DISSATISFACTION’ by the main title on the front page. The use of the adjective ‘DISSATISFIED’ may suggest a preference by the editorial board in ideological terms, conveying a genericisation of a country’s population (Machin and Mayr, 2023; van Leeuwen, 2008). That is linked to ‘PORTUGUESES’ towards the ‘THRILL OF DEMOCRACY’. Contradicting the flourishing Diário de Notícias’s front page carnations, here they are conceived in a top-down vector and suggest the ‘DEMOCRACY’ degradation, along with their red-colour lose, even though one appears to be about to grow, which may convey hope for the future.

Such ‘dissatisfaction’ links to ordered ‘Polls’ by the medium. These have been discussed by books such as Como mentem as sondagens (in English, How do polls lie), where the author names several challenges related to them, such as their historic political instability and sample issues (Martins, 2023). In line with the intensification of populism and media populism as previously described, it appears to be a need to create affect through multimodality (e.g., Westberg, 2021). Beyond what was already noted, the protruding and contrasting dark background and its high modality appeals to an obscure horizon over the future, life danger, ‘DEMOCRACY’ at risk, and status quo denial (Heller, 2014/2000). Apart from the highly salient and delimited headline, there is also the written and visual mention to the artist Chico Buarque, his award ceremony, and ‘the taste of revenge’, regarding the Brazilian president aforementioned outspoken event. The use of the word ‘revenge’ stresses the already discussed event’s negative side and polarisation. Other events are noted by the page, such as student demonstrations, recalling to the ones in 1969, in Portugal (Barros, 1989), or the ‘broken down’ computers on schools, pointing to other sources of national ‘DISSATISFACTION’.

Público

(https://www.vercapas.com/capa/arquivo/publico/2023-04-25.html)

The ‘25th April’ appears related to the ‘15 demonstrations’ plus ‘the Lula effect’ in a highlighted utterance. This headline represents a selection of events and a construction of another one in a more intended way, implying a negative set of emotions upon this presence at the Parliament. The carnation is put right below that utterance, but, likely to Jornal de Notícias, police emerge as a source and actor within this whole event and ‘the strong popular mobilisation’ leading to the ‘strengthen’ of the ‘police force next to the Parliament’. Portugal’s president, ‘Marcelo [Rebelo de Sousa]’, gets a mention due to his ‘notes and alerts’ plus ‘the messages’ in respect to the ‘25th April’. A newspaper’s journalist is emphasised through a quote on ‘the dawn of the revolution’: ‘We were this absurd in 1974’. Ana Sá Lopes speaks in the name of a collective group of people who joint large groups on the streets of Portugal, conveying this vision of rupture and contributing to something completely different from the past that would be a transition to a still ongoing democratic political system. The red of the carnation and its green stem inclusion is similar to Diário de Notícias’s front cover, almost working as a reminder and, simultaneously and suggestively, positioning the newspaper in favour of the revolution and its freedom ideals, once more expressing a connection to the power of people regarding the revolution. It also brings the ‘personalities’ issue very likely to Diário de Notícias and the elite promotion, by bringing to the front page well-known politicians, an artist, and a journalist.

The main photo refers to Chico Buarque and his award ceremony. The utterance ‘Thank you, Chico Buarque, for all your art and beauty’ by Manuel Frias, member of the award panel, reinforces the cultural side of the artist, his artistry and legacy throughout the years. It is salient on the page, explicitly delimited and occupies most of the page, with many people stood up, facing, and watching him smiling with open arms, which stresses his presence even more. Such highlight may relate to the meaningful dedication to cultural journalism by Público (e.g., Müller et al., 2023). Another point to mention is the ‘Camões Prize’ and the link to ‘art and beauty’, which recalls the poet Luís Vaz de Camões, but, simultaneously, engages Chico Buarque, resembling Diário de Notícias’s approach.

Other headlines refer to other current problematic issues. Some relating to railway national system, some others relating to climate change, or even the European Union’s budget for the Europe’s defence. This last set of issues can be analysed within the current context of the mobilisation of several countries to help Ukraine to make itself more prepared to fight against Russia. This positioning gathers support from many countries across Europe, including Portugal. The ex-Foreign Affairs Minister, João Gomes Cravinho, expressed Portugal’s support to Ukraine and his attention towards the strategy of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, on refusing Ukraine’s existence and threatening the rest of the European continent (DN/Lusa, 2024). The headline explicitly writes: ‘Europe did not spend so much on Defence since the end of Cold War’. This also recalls to the Colonial War, when Portugal was used to invest a large portion of the national budget on the war within the ex-colonies, and the consensus appealing by Lula da Silva, disregarding Ukraine support and Portugal’s official Ukraine’s encouraging positioning. 49 years later, through governors, Portugal exhibits its concern towards a new possible war conflict. In addition, in 2015, the editorials of Diário de Notícias and Público showed higher criticism towards the formation of a government headed by António Costa (Barros, 2019), the prime minister in office when Lula da Silva’s visit took place.

Critical reflection

As above cited as linked to what i front page conveys, the extreme right-wing party with parliamentary representation went further on prompting a demonstration within the Parliament during Lula da Silva’s presence on the official celebrations of 25th April 2023. At the Parliament session, the Parliament’s president at date told those Members of Parliament to stop the demonstration and ‘shame’ Portugal (SIC Notícias, 2023). After the session, the response of Brazil’s president described that demonstration as a ‘ridiculous scene’ (RTP, 2023, 00:00:12-00:00:13). As previously indicated, such presidential presence and address opposes to a long-lasting tradition of only featuring national State presidents to be present and address the Parliament on that day (Lusa & Público, 2023). In some way, Lula da Silva’s 2023 presence at the Parliament suggests to politically give voice to other personalities, contradicting a ‘colonial mythology’ (Cardina, 2023: 31), in an exceptional political move, but media coverage appears to respond differently. Drawing on Cabrera’s et al. (2011: 89) work, media could also have constructed what is akin to a pseudo-event in order to prompt ‘questioning’.

By turning these approaches into news events, coloniality gets here involved, which leads one to think of what the journalism role on should be offering people alternative ones and giving voice to other people and social groups. Like others, Portugal was an ex-colonialist European country, exercising power towards territories and their cultural contexts, including Brazil, and leaving marks until today. A decolonial choice here deserves attention, when aiming at ensuring diversity, plurality, and more inclusive environments within many contexts in society, without forgetting the previous discussions on media and populism. Taking from the current Portuguese social background, Cabecinhas (2023: 784) debates on the several crises these last years have prompted, such as the ‘migration crisis’ or ‘pandemic crisis’, carrying with them ‘virulent public discourses that stigmatise certain groups as ‘scapegoats’ and aim to legitimate that certain people have their life confined so that Portugal can ‘be great again’. Highlighting the need for memory ‘glean’ in order to ‘build alternative futures’ (p. 784), this author also bears into consideration the struggles many have passed through during the dictatorship, dealing with freedom conditionalities, but also the lack of access to essential goods, such as food, healthcare, or freedom of expression. Here applies the Brazil’s military dictatorship period, when many people were chased for their political and artistic activity, including Lula da Silva and the several times mentioned on the front pages Chico Buarque.

Although involved in much instability (Cerezales, 2008), the 25th April’s Revolution allowed a transition to the approval of a Constitution and later the first elections to an official Constitutional Government in 1976. One of the freedoms formally guaranteed from such developments was the press freedom. The front pages under analysis emerge from media outlets gifted with such freedom, based on editorial choices. Despite that, when journalism is producing pseudo-events, carefully selecting and moulding words, expressions, symbols, photos or other settings, and highlighting certain actors with certain links, isn’t it contributing to its spectacularising force and precariousness, since this is also submitted to several editorial, economic, and organisational pressures (e.g., Duarte et al., 2023; Rosas, 2018)? On the one hand, if journalism gets more attention, potential press circulation and digital subscribers, on the other hand, it may be conditioning other factors (Mesquita, 2002): its quality, diversity, genre multiplicity and questioning ability linked to ethics and deontology. Portuguese journalism fights against maintaining press circulation and its tradition and, simultaneously, evolving to digital platforms and devices. However, it is highly conditioned by the lack of financial resources and its economic sustainability models mainly focused on circulation and advertising.

Concluding remarks

Brazil’s president is portrayed as a person aligned with the Socialist Party’s Government and a conditioner to Portugal’s traditions. His controversial celebrity status is then nourished. Represented as a cause of disruption and mixing him with a population dissatisfactory sense, Lula da Silva is multimodally and discursively, including intertextually, under the spotlight on these days, in the name of a pseudo-event, intendedly constructed to favour an interest agenda to boost attentions and sales. His visit is displayed as a matter of concern, controversy, and, simultaneously, entertainment in a showtime approach, due to his mediatisation linked to a close relationship to a huge number of people living in Brazil and Portugal. Nonetheless, he ends up textually linked to several controversies, directly or indirectly remembered by the front pages, and some generated others.

Based on the previously discussed literature, this work conceives that Lula da Silva’s visit and presence at the Parliament is akin to a pseudo-event. Coming back to the sample criteria, medium historicity, circulation, and editorial identity assume a considerable role on constructing pseudo-events. Media spectacularisation of Lula da Silva is not new, and, under the explored contexts, those newspapers are on solid ground to empower it.

In line with the previous paragraph, the power of media front pages as ‘semiotic products’ and ‘showcases’ (Ledin and Machin, 2018; Ribeiro, 2023a) relates to a set of optional visual and verbal resources, along with the recall of many contextual ones. In varying degrees between one another, they are common to the four analysed texts and to what goes beyond them, their editorial identities, other texts within the same period, or even past ones, along with the arise of populism and its various features. In line with Boorstin (1992), it relies on: its (1) incitation by media outlets following the Government’s official announcement of it, (2) within a populist background, plantation for reproduction, as seen this work’s sample, likely many other media outlets, and prompting other (media) events; (3) ambiguity on the circumstances of his visit, suggesting the exclusive political and friendly ties with the Government’s party at time and democracy symbolism, apart from many other reasons; and (4) self-fufilling prophetic side, to portray Lula da Silva and his exclusivity as a foreigner president to be present at a ceremony usually with no interventions by a foreign actor makes it exclusive, unique, and, regarding the actor under analysis, controversial. It deserves attention the ‘fabrication’ feature noted by Skey (2021), since it may prompt some more future media approaches and helps media outlets to gather attention and sales in a ‘media competitive environment’ (p. 159), and, according to Duarte et al. (2023), precarious one. In addition, as pointed by Cabrera et al. (2011: 89), the ‘drama’ it provides, along with the easier more or less serious discussions on it.

Finally, it is acknowledged the limitation of the sample size, perspectives orienting the interpretative and critical side of the analysis carried out, and academic positioning within Communication and Media Studies. However, this work allows one to look for different issues to explore, find here inspiration for further research, within diverse scientific domains, or, more particularly, to motivate other researchers to study historic events through media discourse, since media produce, promote and diffuse representations in a unique way.