Paper short abstract:

This paper intends to determine, in the framework of the reactions of the opposition sectors, which was the approach taken by the press on the dissemination of the democratic principles on the 18th of June 1946, in Margão.

Paper long abstract:

Once the population was deprived of a wide number of news, which is indispensable for a critical analysis of the situation of the country, preemptive restriction on freedom of information, censorship became one of the essential mechanisms for maintaining the authoritarian political power, molding the thinking in favor of the doctrinal principles of the regime. The media were used as an orchestrated act of political propaganda, transforming reality so that all would accept it as the "national truth".

With the public opinion controlled and manipulated by censorship and strong propaganda, in order to unite the Portuguese people around a regime that defended the survival of the borders of a pluricontinental country, emerged the criticism to the colonial policy.

In Estado Português da Índia, a year before the proclamation of the independence of India, on the 18th of June 1946, in Margao, the Goans expressed their disagreement with the colonial policy, marking the beginning of the last phase of the struggle for the liberation of Goa. This paper intends to make a comparative study of the contribution of the press in the dissemination of democratic principles of this movement between Goan and metropolitan opposition, by two Goan newspapers, O BHARAT! and Heraldo and two metropolitan: República, a legal newspaper and Avante!, a clandestine newspaper.