The Image Of China In Brazil

This research proposes an investigation on the public image of China in Brazil, from the production and the reception perspectives. Beyond the idea of only showing what Brazilian people think about China and how a famous Brazilian TV newscast broadcasts the country, is the attempt to understand how China’s image is formed in Brazil and what elements influence people’s opinion about it. In order to accomplish this, Brazilian main TV newscast, Jornal Nacional from Globo TV, was used as a case study to represent the production sphere; and Brazilian political and economical centers-Brasilia and Sao Paulo-were the two cities chosen as empirical objects to hold the investigation on the reception sphere, which was represented by university students. The theoretical foundation includes an overview on researches about Western images of China, a panorama of the Sino-Brazilian relations, reflections on cultural identity and the concepts of of public opinion, public image, public visibility sphere and newsmaking. A content analysis using different techniques of data collection and analysis was conducted. To represent the production sphere, all pieces of news related to China broadcasted by Jornal Nacional during the first semester of 2013 were collected, recorded, compiled into one file and used for the content analysis, which was done by the classification of the pieces of news into different categories and genres. To represent the audience sphere, it was chosen a qualitative approach, with the technique of focus groups, using semi-structured interviews and obeying scientific criteria and rigor. In total,6 groups were conducted:3 in Brasilia and 3 in Sao Paulo. The contrast of the theoretical foundation with the empirical data provided the elements which enabled the composition of the public image of China in Brazil, from the production and the reception spheres, based on a case studied.