Discursive representation and violation of homeless people's rights: Symbolic violence in Brazilian online journalism

This article is part of the research project RepresentacAo midiatica da violacAo de direitos e da violencia contra pessoas em situacAo de rua no jornalismo on-line', associated with Red Latinoamericana de Analisis Critico del Discurso de la Extrema Pobreza (REDLAD), and focuses upon the ways in which electronic news media represent homeless people in Brazil. The focus is a pair of texts, related through internal hyperlinks, about the controversy concerning the installation of a social center in a middle-class neighborhood in central Sao Paulo. The texts are analyzed on the theoretical basis of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and considering the following analytical categories: metaphor, representation of social actors and intertextuality. Analyses show a scenario of invasion by unwelcome people', who are not perceived as rights holders, but as a threat to the rights of others.