Obama in Time Magazine and Lula in Revista Veja

Journalism and its links with nationhood and the ideologies that have built the nations (race, gender, and class, according to the historians) are the subjects of this study. They are researched through the analysis of the news coverage of two presidential elections which were remarkable in the both countries studied, the United States and Brazil. The elections of the first African-American president of the United States, Barack Obama, and of the first worker president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, are comparable for their symbolism and historical relevance. A total of 24 cover stories published in Veja (Brazil) and Time magazine (United States) within a period of approximately eight months in the years of 2008 (Time) and 2002 (Veja) are analyzed. In this close textual reading, visual grammar is also taken in account, since journalism is a language that communicates with its readership by means of layouts (especially in the case of magazines). This is a study mainly of language and its relationship with the world, in which ideology occupies a special place.