A Reflection on Governmental Actions Caused by the Current Drought that Were Reported in the Written Press of Rio Grande Do Norte- Brazil

Abstract

This paper analyzed the main components of speech that are being used by the press of Rio Grande do Norte to enlighten the population about the actions that have been taken by the government in response to drought. The discussion on the phenomenon of drought in northeastern Brazil has led to an understanding that more than a climate problem, this problem of major droughts is a social problem, because the preparation for these moments of great decrease in rainfall requires a cultural change, where the paradigm would be "combating drought" passing "coexistence with the semiarid". The methodology used was the literature and documents, which were consulted on four newspapers websites, two of Natal/RN and two Mossoro/RN. On these newspapers were surveyed the 2013editions, being raised the titles of articles published over the current drought. For the analysis of these data subsets were created by category, where through lexical analysis and content was possible to list the main aspects are presented in the press about the phenomenon of drought and how government agencies are responding to the challenges. Among the results, it was found that there is drought-related news in every newspaper investigated and notes a tendency to address the negative effects of drought, highlighting the economic damage, social and environmental. Another category of news identified relate to government policies and actions that are being taken to address the effects of the drought.
Keywords: Information, Public policies, Semiarid.