The London School of Economics and Political Science Nationhood, Visibility and the Media: The Struggles for and over the Image of Brazil during the June 2013 Demonstrations César Antonio Jiménez-Martínez A thesis submitted to the Department of Media and Communications of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the Degree of Doctor in Philosophy, London, March 2017 1 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 68,031 words. The images reproduced in this thesis are used under a copyright exception, Section 30 of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, for the purposes of Quotation (criticism and review) and as part of my non-commercial research for my thesis. All translations from Portuguese and Spanish into English are mine unless indicated. Statement of use of third party for editorial help I can confirm that my thesis was copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by Julia Samuel and Christine Stein. 2 Abstract In June 2013, the largest series of protests that Brazil had experienced in more than twenty years erupted in cities across the country. News from Brazil and abroad reported that people protested against the money that local authorities spent on hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, rather than on the provision of basic public services. The demonstrations, which journalists and academics called the June Journeys, challenged the Brazilian authorities’ efforts to construct and project an image of Brazil as a harmonious and modern nation. This thesis focusses on the reasons and conditions underpinning the media coverage of the June Journeys in relation to the image of Brazil. The study explores the tensions for and over the symbolic construction, projection and contestation of the nation in the current interrelated, transnational and content- intensive media environment. Theoretically, the thesis draws on scholarship on nationalism, media and nationhood, media and social movements, and mediated visibility. Empirically, the study analyses two datasets: (1) 797 newspaper articles, television reports, online videos and photos produced by Brazil’s main newspapers and television newscasts, alternative media collectives, and a selection of foreign media from the United States and Western Europe; (2) sixty-three interviews with Brazilian journalists, foreign correspondents, activists and government officials, who participated in the media coverage of the protests. The analysis of these two datasets suggests that the current media environment is a space of constraint rather than pluralism, in which traditional power imbalances are reproduced. The authorities, activists and journalists constructed competing images of Brazil and then employed strikingly similar strategies to make these images visible. The research also underlines how norms, routines, market imperatives and technologies shape and limit the type of images of the nation shown by these various individuals and organisations through the media. 3 Acknowledgements It has been more than four years since I set out on this journey, which has taken me to new and unexpected intellectual, emotional and geographical lands. Before I embarked on it, several people warned me that writing a PhD thesis would most likely be a lonely and slow endeavour. While they were right to some extent, I would not have been able to reach this stage without the help of many people, who offered me their unconditional guidance and support. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Shani Orgad. I cannot imagine a better supervisor. She was always challenging me, pushing me to produce my best work, helping me to make sense of the data and meeting me even when she was on sick leave or on sabbatical. Our discussions opened new, intensely stimulating intellectual avenues. Many of the ideas I am most proud of were actually born during my meetings with her. Needless to say, I take full responsibility for any shortcomings in the pages that follow. I gratefully acknowledge the help of all those people who were so gracious to consent to be interviewed for my thesis. Many of them have asked to remain anonymous, but I would like to thank them all for their generosity, time, memories and insights. On many occasions, their perspectives on the issues explored in this thesis were starkly contrasting. However, they all shared a deep love for Brazil and a strong desire to make the lives of Brazilians better, even though what they understood as ‘better’ usually differed. Some of them may not agree with the arguments I present in these pages, but I hope nevertheless to do justice to the love of Brazil they expressed during the interviews. I would also like to thank all the old and new friends I met in Brazil during my fieldwork in Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. They took me into their homes, helped me contact people for my interviews and listened for hours to the avalanche of new things that this gringo was seeing and hearing every day, 4 even though it must have sounded quite obvious to them. Again, not all of them wish to be mentioned. I can however openly thank, among others, Alexandre Amaral, Thais Brugnara Rosa, Priscilla Amaral, Aleksandra Ristovic, Camila Risso Sales, Samuel de Alburquerque Carvalho, Mauricio Savarese, Júlio Lubianco and Pollyana Brêtas, Magá Telles and Eduardo Zanelato, Driade Aguiar, Daniel Buarque, Georgiana Calimeris, Pedro Franco, Celia Franco and Thiago Bonna. This thesis would not have come to fruition without all of you. I would like to express my appreciation to those people who provided me with valuable insight at different stages in my journey including my second supervisor, Nick Anstead, as well as other members of the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, including Terhi Rantanen, Bart Cammaerts, Wendy Willems, Shakuntala Banaji, Nick Couldry, Lilie Chouliaraki, Sonia Livingstone, Wallis Motta, Alicia Blum-Ross and Myria Georgiou. I would also like to thank the intellectual generosity of Michael Skey, Nadia Kaneva, Maria Kyriakidou, Sabina Mihelj, Melissa Aronczyk, Don Slater, Amelia Arsenault, James Pamment, Stephanie Dennison, Leslie Marsh, Anna Roosvall, Colleen Murrell, Bernard McGuirk and Craig Calhoun, as well as the members of the NYLON group in London. I would also like to thank several colleagues who kept me more or less sane during the last few years, offering their unconditional support and ears, such as Benjamin de la Pava, Brooks Deciilia, Svenja Ottovordemgentschenfelde, Nora Kroeger, Fabien Cante, Meagan Zurn and Ruth Garland. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to some of the most important people in my life: my best friend Christine Stein, my siblings Victoria and Pablo, my parents Miguel and Nancy and, overall, to my beloved Sandra. Thank you all. 5 Contents 1. Setting the Scene: The June Journeys and Brazil’s Image in the Media 13 1.1 An Unexpected Twist 13 The Protests as Contestations for and over the Meaning of Brazil 1.2 Protests in The ‘New’ Brazil 16 The ‘New’ and ‘Rising’ Brazil The June Journeys 1.3 The June Journeys disrupting the Image of Brazil 26 The Image of the Nation National Images and Significant Others 1.4 News Media and the Image of the Nation 35 News as a Source of National Images The June Journeys and the News Media 1.5 Thesis Structure 42 2. National Cohesiveness and Contestation: Nations, Media and Visibility 46 2.1 Introduction 46 2.2 Nations as Sites of Contestation 46 Moving from ‘what a Nation is’ towards ‘what a Nation is used for’ Nations performed in the Global Age Nationhood and Protests: Unfinished Imagined Communities 2.3 Nations and the Media 56 The Relationship between the Media and the Nation National Contestation in the Media The Media as Upholders of the Nation 2.4 Nations in the Age of New Mediated Visibility 64 Visibility: Between Recognition and Control A New Mediated Visibility A Three-dimensional Analytical Model of Visibility 2.5 Conclusion 75 6 3. Methodology and Research Design: A Multi-sited and Grounded Approach to Studying the June Journeys 77 3.1 Introduction 77 3.2 Challenges and Research Strategies 77 The Challenge of Methodological Nationalism Studying National Images across Multiple Sites and Platforms Studying an Event in Development 3.3 Data Collection and Analysis 83 Mediated Content: Timeframe and Sample Strategy Interviews: Meeting the News Producers Data Analysis: Code Generation and Multimodality 3.4 Considerations and Limitations of the Research Strategy 97 Limitations of the Study My Experience as Researcher: Affecting and Being Affected by the Data 3.5 Conclusion 102 4. The Visible Nation: The June Journeys through the Prism of Four Frames 104 4.1 Introduction 104 4.2 Key Actors and Dominant Frames 106 Types of Actors: State, National Storytellers, Agents, Entrepreneurs Dominant Frames 4.3 A Harmonious Brazil: State-constructed Frame 112 Showing a ‘New’ Brazil Ready to Charm the World State Sponsored Promotional Actions 4.4 Protection of the Social Order: Brazil’s Mainstream Media 117 ‘Vandals’ and ‘Thugs’ Disrupting the Social Order The National Media as ‘Neutral’ Observers of the June Journeys 4.5 The People versus their Rulers: Foreign Media 124 The June Journeys become Foreign News Brazil as a Token of Global Discontent 4.6 Unmasking Brazil: Activists and Alternative Media Collectives 129 Alternative Media during the June Journeys Mídia NINJA against Brazil’s Representational Crisis 4.7 Conclusion 133 7 5.