Another ‘Fourth Branch’

Abstract

American journalism has been taken as an almost universal standard for comparative journalism studies. Most of those focus on the adoption of American-born rhetoric and practices by other countries’ news media and journalists. This article maintains that this approach is misleading, because first, it minimizes the fact that American journalism is a cultural artifact too; and second, it offers a very simplistic model of the influence of American journalism on other countries. By analyzing the Brazilian news media, and the specific way it appropriates the American ‘Fourth Branch’ rhetoric, I maintain that the relationship that other countries’ journalisms establish with the American type of journalism must be understood as a creative adaptation, rather than a simple adoption.