Printed media and demographic education

Odeibler Guidugli

The printed media has an important role for the society. It is no only transmitter of information, but it is active and interested part in the information process.. In Brazil, the printed media has increasingly been acting in the formation of specific cultures, to disseminate themes in evidence in the society. The demographic issues are relevant for the comprehension of the challenges of the society whatever the spatial scale considered. The themes of aging, migration, local planning, , etc represent evidences of issues registered by the media,. How have these different issues been presented in a quantitative way as well as in a qualitative one? The search of these answers has involved a quantitative-qualitative study of the news directly linked to the population thematic, registered in the newspaper: O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO. The research contemplated the period between October 2006 and September 2007 totaling 750 different pieces of news which were submitted to processes of quantitative analysis as well as the qualitative one. The results obtained have shown some relevant aspects. First the great diversity of the thematic treated, but also the maladjustments in the adaptation of what was informed to the perceptive capacities of the society. Second the dissociation between the news informed and the lack of correlations with demographic variables. Third the role that the written media can have in the creation of a demographic culture, as an indispensable component to the social life. After all, the search of solutions to the environmental; urban violence; urban development; etc have intrinsic relation with a better comprehension that the society, collectively, has of its dynamic. As researchers of population we have to recognize that the media is a critical and influent agent in the construction of the contemporary knowledge, inclusive in the population studies.