Life stories as a research methodology: a case study of the biographical narrative of the journalist Lira Neto¹

The topic of this paper is the application of the life history method, widely used in the social sciences, as a means of gathering news, understanding facts and guiding writing in the field of Communication research and, above all, Journalism. As an object, it employs the life and work of the Brazilian journalist João de Lira Cavalcante Neto. Better known by his family name, Lira Neto is currently considered one of the most successful Brazilian biographers. Data was collected through the technique of the in-depth interview as well as the literature review. On a epistemological level, the textual experimentation of this article starts from the premise that it is possible to merge the density of the theoretical approach on the biographical method with the narrative fluency studied in Literary Journalism, suggesting that an academic text can be both consistent and engaging.

Keywords
Literary Journalism; Methods in journalism.; Life history; Biographical Narratives; Lira Neto