Desinformação na Pandemia: Vozes e estratégias de jornalistas do núcleo de imprensa do Governo de São Paulo

Resumo (EN)

The purpose of this research is to analyze how the communication team of the São Paulo State Government developed and implemented strategies to confront disinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic, seeking to understand how these actions contributed to expanding public access to reliable information in a context of intense political and informational dispute.
The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the health crisis was accompanied by a communication crisis characterized by the accelerated circulation of false content and by the actions of political actors who instrumentalized disinformation as a form of symbolic dispute. Thus, understanding the role of public communication in moments of emergency makes it possible to advance in formulating more effective strategies for future crisis situations, emphasizing the need for transparency, institutional credibility, and alignment with scientific evidence. The central research problem consists in identifying how the state government’s communication apparatus articulated its responses to the dual crisis—sanitary and informational—and what challenges it faced in balancing the dissemination of verified information with efforts to counter false narratives amplified by national polarization. The study assumes the hypothesis that, although the São Paulo government adopted communication practices consistent with established frameworks of crisis management and public communication, the effectiveness of these actions was limited by a hostile political environment and the systematic opposition of the federal government, which used misinformative discourse as a strategic tool to construct alternative framings and delegitimize scientific institutions. This hypothesis aligns with theoretical approaches that conceptualize disinformation as an instrument of discursive power and as a mechanism of political mobilization grounded in negative affections. Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative approach supported by semi-structured interviews with five journalists who worked directly in the São Paulo state government’s communication efforts during the pandemic. The interviews will be analyzed using content analysis, allowing the professionals’ perceptions to be related to theoretical discussions on public communication, disinformation, and crisis management. The study also incorporates documentary analysis and a literature review to contextualize communication strategies within the broader political and informational landscape. In doing so, it aims to produce an in-depth understanding of the limits and potential of governmental communication in contexts marked by public health emergencies and narrative disputes.