Resumo

PRIETO, Carmen María  e  MOLERO DE CABEZA, Lourdes. Church-Government confrontation regarding the Constitutional Reform Project in digital media discourse: an approach based on discourse analysis. Opcion [online]. 2009, vol.25, n.58, pp.133-160. ISSN 1012-1587.

This paper analyzes digital journalistic discourse about the confrontation between church and government related to the reform project for the Venezuelan Constitution, proposed by President Hugo Chávez in 2007. Based on discourse analysis principles with a semantic-pragmatic approach (Molero de Cabeza, 2003, 2007), a sample of news notes on the theme was selected from local and foreign cyber-media. Results show that texts originating from sources in the governmental sector emphasize the use of religious domination to defend the reform and reject the opinion of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; while on the contrary, the church holds to political and ideological domination to support its viewpoints against the reform. As for the discursive construction of “I” and the “other,” in both sectors, legitimization of the group transmitter and de-legitimization of the opponent were observed.

Palavras-chave : discourse analysis; digital media; Venezuelan constitutional reform.