A participação das fontes formais na qualificação da notícia

Abstract

The informational boom, caused by the development of communication technology, leads to the concern, by information scientists and journalists, about the ´information quality. The discussion about the influence of formal sources of information in the information quality process deserves special attention, because these sources are active agents in the reality showed by the media. By formal sources of information we mean the organizations and experts, whose knowledge is formally validated and recognized by society. With the objective of enlarging the discussion about this subject, the current dissertation investigated the participation of the formal sources in two processes: the news production and the quality of the news produced. We explored the subject in a theorical and practice way. The investigation approached the phenomenon in the context of the newsmaking. Because the theme is seldom present in literature, we begin by following theorical approach in order to help us think about the concepts of information, information quality and information sources. Next, we interviewed 19 professionals, called by us as information disseminators of the formal sources, three experts and 15 journalists in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. We chose this small sample in order to be able to lead with it in depth qualitative data collection. We suggest a model for resources evaluation of information sources, which can be used by newspapers, students, educators or others involved with the process of information production. Finally, we pointed out the main contributions of the research, its limitations and presented suggestions for further research. It is important to emphasize that this dissertation has both theorical and practical contributions, in tune with our thought that scholarly research has the responsibility to help the holistic social development.