Archetypal journalism

analysis of the editorial profile in editora abril's magazines during pandemic times

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the influence of the brand archetype on magazines, both in their editorial and communication contexts. The use of this mechanism in productions not only strengthens their individual identity but also makes the content produced of interest to consumers. To achieve this, the study analyzes how three products from Editora Abril, which a priori have different perspectives and target audiences, approach the same topic—in this case, the coronavirus. The study is based on the concepts of magazine journalism, listed by Scalzo (2011), and the use of archetypes in brand building, developed by Mark and Pearson (2022). In this scenario, the goal is to develop a basic, qualitative, and exploratory article based on issues 703, 414, and 2684 of the magazines CLAUDIA, Superinteressante, and Veja, respectively. This work is justified because, especially in brand creation, archetypes have gained great prominence. Furthermore, the possibility was observed that this concept could also influence how media outlets, in this case, magazines, report on the same event. In the marketing field, they could evaluate which of the 12 possibilities they fit into and increasingly direct content production toward the desired target audience, from the choice of the topic to how it will be developed. It is found that brand archetypes are directly related to the editorial lines of each magazine, influencing the angle chosen by each of them to address the COVID-19 issue in their April 2020 editions.