Representações discursivas de fake news/desinformação em livros didáticos de Língua Portuguesa: uma análise de coleções do PNLD (2023-2026) do Ensino Fundamental

Abstract

This Dissertation work focuses on discussions about fake news in the field of Portuguese language teaching, taking PNLD textbooks as the object of study. In this sense, this investigation has the general objective of analyzing to what extent and in what way the phenomenon of fake news/disinformation is represented discursively in Portuguese language textbooks. Thus, three specific objectives guided the research: identify to what extent and in what way the phenomenon is covered in the selected materials; verify which discursive representations are considered in the materials with regard to supporting texts and activities; investigate to what extent discursive representations reveal particular ways of didactic appropriation in activities. To this end, this Dissertation is epistemologically organized into discussions that include understanding the phenomenon of fake news (Tandoc Jr et al., 2018; Wardle and Derakhshan, 2019) and theoretical-methodological principles from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough , 2001) and Systemic-Functional Grammar (Halliday and Matthienssen, 2014; Fuzer and Cabral, 2014). The universe of research analysis comprises the four collections of the new PNLD (2023-2026) that were most selected among public Elementary Education schools in the city of Santa Maria, in Rio Grande do Sul: Português: Linguagens (Cereja and Vianna, 2022), Teláris Essencial – Língua Portuguesa (Triconi et al. 2022), Metaverso – Língua Portuguesa (Barros et al., 2022) and A Conquista – Língua Portuguesa (Beltrão and Gordilho, 2022). The analyzed corpus comprises the discussion sections and teaching activities on fake news from the selected collections. Based on a methodology with a qualitative-interpretivist approach, anchored in resources rich in meaning (Barton, 2002) and in the Transitivity System of Systemic-Functional Grammar, a distance of meanings was identified in the discursive representations about fake news among the collections analyzed: 1) fake news as a market and a belief system (Português: Linguagens); 2) fake news as a social practice and a harmful practice (Teláris Essencial – Língua Portuguesa); 3) fake news through participants involved in the production, distribution, consumption and checking process (A Conquista – Língua Portuguesa). Furthermore, the didactic activities, to a large extent, are not related to the discursive representations contained in the discussion and definition sections of fake news, most of the time emptying the meanings expressed in the guiding texts.