A Historical Perspective of Press Analysis

Alini Hammerschmitt

(Universidade de Caxias do Sul, Hammer S&A, Brazil)

Abstract: This article aims to shed light upon an analysis of historical press. The method of depth hermeneutics by John Thompson, aided by the concepts of Pierre Bourdieu and Terry Eagleton are applied in an effort to elucidate the orientation of a newspaper (O Commercio) in a city in the countryside of Brazil, in early 20th century. To illustrate the application of Thompson’s Hermeneutics for historical press, 4 O Commercio news reports from 1905, 1906 and 1907, are presented in full. Our analysis has shown that such hermeneutics is valid to analyze the press of the past as this possibility can be explored with new fronts of research.

Key words: historical press, countryside press, press analysis