Traditional and Independent Media in the Brazilian Public Sphere on the Age of Crisis, Social Media and the Precariat
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Traditional and Independent Media in the Brazilian Public Sphere On the age of crisis, social media and the precariat MA Thesis Name of author: Lucas Pascholatti Carapiá Student number: 640146 Track: Global Communication Department of Culture Studies School of Humanities August 2017 Supervisor: Piia Varis Second reader: Jan Blommaert Table of Contents 1) INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 6 2) METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................ 8 A) Max Horkheimer and Rationality in the Contemporary Social Philosophy – Criticism regarding the empirical analytical method ..................................................................................................................... 8 B) Key Events and Data Collection ............................................................................................................ 9 C) Critical Online Ethnography ................................................................................................................ 12 3) THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................. 14 A) Public sphere, the utopia and ideology behind it ............................................................................... 14 B) Communicative capitalism and the public sphere ............................................................................. 16 C) Crisis of welfare, financialist-technology and the precariat of 21st century ....................................... 19 D) From utopia to reality: what is the Web 2.0 ...................................................................................... 24 4) THE BRAZILIAN CONTEXT ........................................................................................................................ 26 A) Communication in 20th-Century Brazil ............................................................................................... 26 B) The rise of the Internet and Social Media .......................................................................................... 30 5) INDEPENDENT MEDIA ............................................................................................................................. 33 The case of Jornalistas Livres and Mídia Ninja ........................................................................................ 33 A) Jornalistas Livres ................................................................................................................................. 35 B) Media Ninja......................................................................................................................................... 37 C) Key Events - General Strike of 29th April 2017 .................................................................................... 40 6) DISCUSSION AND OBSERVATION ............................................................................................................ 44 7) ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIGITAL ACTIVISM AND CORPORATIVE CAPITALISM IN SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS .................................................................................................................................................. 48 8) CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................... 50 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................... 53 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................ 54 2 Preface This thesis was written for the master track in Global Communication, Cultural Studies, at Tilburg University, Netherlands. It was supervised by professor Piia Varis, from the same department. The investigation and writing process of this thesis occurred throughout 2017. Though data collection and literature review have started during the master courses, from August 2016. It is recommended to read this thesis in digital format (such as .pdf), as the number of links attached in footnotes can serve as an extension of the content itself, as extra information and explanation to a non- Brazilian public. Some of the references cited are available only in Portuguese, but most of them were oriented to an English speaker public. Those who are only available in Portuguese can be translated by online tools as an auxiliary method to understand this thesis and all its data available, at least those who are textual. Some videos available on YouTube platform have automatic subtitles mechanisms that can help better understand the content available. This thesis uses the Brazilian context and its public sphere from a writer who spent most of his life in this country and acted politically inside that context; therefore, needless to say that this thesis will be biased in many different aspects, especially when it comes to political points of view. Moreover, the context of Brazilian political struggles and social class clashes can be atypical for a European Dutch reader, thus it is important to advise that all the information should be put in its precise context, within its limitations of a country built as a Portuguese colony in the Americas. A nation-state that spent most of the twentieth century governed by authoritarian regimes with no interest in developing massive democracy or civic culture. Just recently Brazil reduced its social inequalities, but the economy is still more and more concentrated on the hands of a few corporation, as much as the political powers that currently governs executive, legislative and judiciary. This thesis was also written following the parliamentary coup d’état suffered by the re-elected president Dilma Rousseff on her second mandate. Thus, much of the facts and information added here were written while Brazil was experiencing lots of political changes, though not for the better. Not only Brazil, but the whole international, social, political and economic scenarios have not been the most favourable since the international crisis of 2008. This thesis and all its content ought to be analysed taking into consideration this international crisis with all the elements that belong to it, such as precariat workers, massive unemployment, migration, superdiversity and populist extreme politicians that benefit from a post-truth democracy and all the disadvantages of means communication we are dealing with. 3 Disregarded all the differences and the Brazilian study case, this thesis aims to be inserted into a global context of a transnational public sphere, that does not limit itself inside specific national borders, to nationalities or their specific languages. Therefore, this thesis pretends to also serve as a global analysis of our digital media context, the multiple limitations and opportunities provided by traditional and new means of communication on the current wave of globalization with all challenges we’re dealing with. Rotterdam, 28th August, 2017 Lucas Pascholatti Carapiá 4 Abstract This master thesis presents the research about current communication context world widely by using critical theory and online ethnography. It looks forward analysing the role of new means of communication inside the transnational public sphere and its local contexts, using Brazil as a study case. Moreover, this thesis aims to study the impact of ideological factors in new media, such as Web 2.0, neoliberalism and social media networks. It pretends to show how those new media, represented by social media networks, can impact communication, behaviour, power and political activism. There is a dilemma imposed by cyber utopianism and totalitarian practices imposed by social media networks, with their limitations and opportunities, therefore they should be studied critically. Regarding opportunities offered by new means of communication, this study will use the case of citizen journalism exercised online by social media network, thus the case from two independent media groups in Brazil, such as Mídia Ninja and Jornalistas Livres, will be used as an illustration about how independent media groups act politically and what are the limitations they are immersed in. In addition, there is the discussion over public policies or the lack of them and how it impacts democracy and communication. 5 1) INTRODUCTION The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a concept of history which corresponds to this. Then it will become clear that the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency; and our position in the struggle against Fascism will thereby improve. Not the least reason that the latter has a chance is that its opponents, in the name of progress, greet it as a historical norm. – The astonishment that the things we are experiencing in the 20th century are “still” possible is by no means philosophical. It is not the beginning of knowledge, unless it would be the knowledge that the conception of history on which it rests is untenable. (VIII) Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History. 1940 For Bayn and Markham in Internet Inquiry (2009: vii), every generation believes it is singular in its experience of rapid and monumental