A escolha de Jolie e a representação midiática do câncer de mama hereditário.

This paper investigates whether the media representation of Angelina Jolie's preventive mastectomy in the newspapers Folha de São Paulo and O Globo contributed to the reader understanding on hereditary breast cancer. Coverage of hereditary breast cancer has high value of newsworthiness: involves, for example, fear, relationships between mothers and daughters, sexual and social significance of the breasts and the impact of heredity in young women like Jolie. The content analysis showed that the coverage may have helped lessen the stigma surrounding the disease. And, if on one hand, the coverage may have increased the anxiety of readers tofind out whether or not they are carriers of mutated genes, on the other, it may have overestimated the genetic factor in the case of breast cancer - ie, may have led readers to believe that if there is no one in the family with breast cancer, there is no risk of contracting it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]