A news published in two media outlets about the possibility of Brazil occupying a seat on the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) offered Adilson Biazotto, master in Applied Linguistics, parameters to observe the mechanisms through which imaginary formations regarding of Brazil are produced in the media space. The issue of the vacancy on the Council gained attention in the media in 2004, following a speech by Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State, on a visit to Brazil. The news agency CNN and the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo addressed the fact, but with different interpretations. “The analysis brought to the debate the importance of mass communication in the formation of the imagination. We start from the premise that the media builds this knowledge in people based on the interpretations that the journalist makes of a certain subject”, argues the researcher.

Biazotto recalls that journalists produced their reports taking Powell's speech as a starting point, but that society did not have access to the full document. In the article published by Estadão, the linguist verified that one of the meaning effects produced was that Brazil was a serious candidate for a seat on the Security Council. “We started the analyzes with the titles of the articles. The newspaper's title positively emphasizes the country's chances of achieving a projection in this area. On the other hand, the article published by CNN makes clear arguments that the country would be unlikely to occupy the vacancy,” he states. The analysis also showed that the negative response was already within the speech and Brazil did not occupy the seat at the UN.

Biazotto's interest, in fact, was to establish a link between imaginary formations and foreign language teaching. He has been teaching English for over 12 years and believes that one of the difficulties in learning is precisely this aspect. The supervisor of the work, professor Carmen Zink Bolognini, from the Institute of Language Studies, explains that each person's concept of the world greatly influences the classroom. “The dialogue between teacher and student often encounters barriers due to the imaginary formations that constitute them, and not exactly in the assimilation of the content”.

Adilson Biazotto observes that, increasingly, educational material developers select newspaper clippings for use in the classroom. Therefore, understanding that that content represents the journalist's interpretation of the fact is essential for the teacher to adapt the teaching. “The meaningful effect that the report can produce on the student and the teacher must be considered in the class. The ideas that Brazilians have of themselves, compared to those that foreigners have, are different. And, in a given real communication situation, it is the imaginary formations that govern the course of the argument”, he analyzes.