Crime live! Representations about crimes and criminals in the newspapers in state of Rio Grande do sul, Brazil

The research aims to question the representations of crime and criminal fact present in the main newspapers in state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Specifically, was realized a mapping of the content and the way news is broadcast in three major newspapers in the state, considering what the crimes are reported, where the space devoted to such news in the papers and how these facts are covered by the press. From these questions, the study aims to verify how the approach is given in stories about crime and how these elements are present. For data collection, was created an instrument containing several indicators, with which was collected information about the juridical and political discourses and news of the crimes published in the newspaper Zero Hora, Correio do Povo and Diário Gaúcho in April 2011. The newspapers was considered in its entirety, representing the file of the research as a corpus for analysis. Rather than initially thought, the data indicate that the reports of crimes are not limited to police editorial of newspapers, but are scattered throughout the issue. Thus, the police editorial brings the news about the "violent crime", traditionally selected by the criminal justice system, while other crimes are placed in other sections, by the legal right involved or by authorship attributed to it. The investigation concludes that newspapers create "crime waves" by bringing together crimes that normally have no relation to each other as interconnected events, thus contributing to the construction of fear and social insecurity. The analysis found that the form of sensationalism and journalistic approach in the cases in study vary according to the newspaper and the location where the news was published.