ABSTRACT
The murder of the city councilwoman of Rio de Janeiro Marielle Franco can be considered a symbolic event of the political tension in Brazil in the context of the 2018 elections. She and her driver were shot while leaving a political event in downtown Rio de Janeiro, on the evening of March 15, 2018. The councilwoman had assumed a position on a Commission created to monitor the actions of federal military intervention in Rio de Janeiro, displayed in February 2018. Since then, she had been engaged in reporting police abuses during the military occupation, expressing her critiques on social media among other spaces. The news of the murder of the councilwoman gained national and worldwide repercussion, being spread by social media and newspapers. Among with these, a great number of rumors about Marielle Franco emerged in social media, accusing her of having personal ties to organized crime. Supposed photos of Marielle with the head of drug trafficking Marcinho VP had the intent to denigrate the image of the councilwoman, producing an unreal narrative of her life. This paper focuses on the discursive construction of Marielle Franco's death, displayed by social media and journalism content production. Our aim is to map the news and fake news constructed about this case. We aim to analyze which discursive formation (DF) and social interests support these fake narratives, unfolding the social, historical and political context involved in this episode. We also aim to investigate and reflect on the discourses that constitute the figure of Marielle Franco, unfolding why her death is so symbolic in the Brazilian contemporary context. At last, we aim to reflect on the ethical role of Brazilian journalism in fake news dissemination and contestation. Our theoretical and methodological background is discourse analysis and discourse studies, based specially on the work of Foucault and Maingueneau.
