The effects of sense of the journalistic discourse about the discourse of the death industry

Abstract

Our goal in this study was to analyze the effects of possible meanings present on the journalistic discourse about the discourse of the death industry. Therefore, we use the French Discourse Analysis, in a Michel Pêcheux perspective, to examine a video report about Funexpo, a business fair of the funeral industry. We come to the following findings: i) the death industry pursue the naturalization of the meaning of death; ii) what is forbidden spell of death in society, in general, is allowed in the restricted environment of speech production conditions of the industry of death, despite the contradictions; iii) the journalistic discourse about death involves a continuum between respect and trivialization of speech, including even irony and humor; iv) the enunciation about life, joy and humor, in the context of a death business fair reveals that there are other possible ways to face death; and v) the meaning of death in capitalist society can undergo a reframing process; vi) consumption, fetish and ostentation are possible effects of being admitted in the death industry, as new ways of doing the same.