As Disputas entre o Jornal de Notícias e o Pequeno Jornal: a deposição do governador José Gonçalves

Abstract

Using as its object of study the deposition of Governor José Gonçalves da Silva, which took place on November 24, 1891, this dissertation aims to address the relationship between the press and politics. Based on an analysis of articles published in newspapers of the time and bibliographies on the subject, the proposal is to discuss the role of the press, especially the newspapers Jornal de Notícias and Pequeno Jornal, in the outcome of the aforementioned political event. The research addresses the disputes that took place in the political and media fields around the removal of Gonçalves from office, a topic that was the main focus of the newspapers of Bahia during the month after the seditious act that removed the governor from office. The analysis of the documents made it possible to see how important political issues were for the publications of the time, how they functioned as spokespeople for opposing political groups, and how the positions adopted by the newspapers influenced the relationships established between them. In addition to issues related to the press, the material analyzed allowed us to highlight some characteristics of the political relations established at the time. As the historical period analyzed was a time of transition in the model of government, we can see the disputes between political groups seeking to maintain the power they had won during the Empire and how these arrangements can be considered factors in the political instability experienced during the period. After all, by analyzing the political movements in the process of deposing the governor, it is possible to understand the fragility of the laws and how they were manipulated according to the interests of this political class.