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Copyright of Revista Ciência & Saúde Coletiva is the property of Associacao Brasileira de Pos-Graduacao em Saude Coletiva and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Ciência & Saúde Coletiva is the property of Associacao Brasileira de Pos-Graduacao em Saude Coletiva and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study seeks to outline the main characteristics of the texts on oral health that appeared in the printed media in the State of Espírito Santo from 2004 to 2009, in order to analyze and compare the issues, approaches and journalistic relevance related to the theme prioritized in A Tribuna and A Gazeta newspapers. Exploratory documentary research was conducted, based on quantitative content analysis of the material, which established that the issues included ranged from information about oral health policies, community service and prevention of oral health diseases, to the "aesthetic tendencies" of the smile. It also covered the dissemination of new technologies and dental specialties and there was a predominance of even-numbered pages, fewer first page texts and full-page coverage. This implies a moderate appreciation of these issues, different editorial projects, plus the difference in target audience that determined the journalistic standard and the predominance of specialized sources. Despite the oral health articles not revealing journalistic "scoops", they can be reworked using conscious journalistic techniques, in order to elicit the extraordinary from the ordinary, giving rise to texts of social relevance in both newspapers.

The theoretical perspective of the analysis conducted is linked to the fact that dental awareness should not be seen as something universal, independent from reality, though participating in its construction. This paper explores the idea symbolized in the colonization of contemporary Dentistry awareness to beyond « the more human than human ». With the example of the increasing pathologization of halitosis, as an objective disorder not only of oral health, but that affects individuals, this work develops an analysis of the (re)invention of pathologies, through visualization technologies in late modernity. It concludes that the veracity of dental awareness, among the main actors, its discourses and its social practices, is never neutral, but always articulated to the interests with which it is permanently involved. The sense of smell moves from knowledge memory and from space to time and certainly from things to beings. Halitosis is, most of the times, unlikely, mixed, singular, and uncertain in time and place.