Public health in the context of covid-19: the meanings of SUS in newspapers from Espírito Santo

Abstract

This research focuses on a quantitative and qualitative media analysis of  Brazilian public health in the context of the covid-19 pandemic in Espírito Santo. The goal is to identify and analyze journalistic articles about the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) and the production of meanings that emerge about the System in 21 capixabas newspapers, during the recent history of Brazil, from December 1, 2019 to December 31, 2021. For this, a robot system for capturing material on the internet, SigCovid-19, was created and developed, as well as an online form to fill out, developed by the Observatório de Saúde na Mídia - Espírito Santo (OSM-ES). The study seeks to identify how Brazilian public health is represented by the media in the capixaba context, in addition to trying to understand the interrelationships between communication and health constructed in newspapers. It was found that: the principles of Comunicação e Saúde (C&S) appear diffusely in newspapers; the mediatic SUS in the pandemic is characterized by an evident dichotomous relationship between valuing journalistic principles and the questions that this raises with regard to providing quality information to the population, especially in the current context of social media’s influence. The conclusion is that the difference in logic between the journalistic environment and the scientific environment leads to disparities that make it difficult to improve how communication is carried out for the general population in dealing with health information in the context of risk, as it is a pandemic.