The Centre of the Labyrinth: A Study of Electoral Competition on Television

This is the first volume of a case study on the dynamics of the presidential race on Brazilian television in 1989. It deals with a campaign that was predominantly televised, forcing candidates and voters to navigate a maze of simulacra resulting from a combination of political gamesmanship and the interference of voting intention polls. The domination of Minos, repressed and hidden in the tangle of paths, seems to have led the 1989 electoral process down the same paths trodden in the last presidential election, before the 1964 coup. In 1989, there was no shortage of analogies between Jânio Quadros, elected in 1960, and Fernando Collor, the victor in the 1989 elections.