Prelims

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BRAZIL

MEDIA FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE FUTURE

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STUDIES IN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS

Series Editors: Shelia R. Cotten, Laura Robinson, and Jeremy Schulz

Volumes 8–10: Laura Robinson and Shelia R. Cotten

Volume 11 Onwards: Laura Robinson, Shelia R. Cotten and Jeremy Schulz

Recent Volumes:

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STUDIES IN MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS VOLUME 13

BRAZIL

MEDIA FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE FUTURE

ESMC VOLUME EDITORS

LAURA ROBINSON

Department of Sociology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

JEREMY SCHULZ

Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

APRYL WILLIAMS

Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

GUEST VOLUME EDITORS

PEDRO AGUIAR

School of Communication – Department of Journalism, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

JOHN BALDWIN

School of Communication, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA

ANTONIO C. LA PASTINA

Department of Communication, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

MONICA MARTINEZ

Department of Communication, Universidade de Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil

SONIA VIRGÍNIA MOREIRA

School of Communication – Department of Journalism, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

HELOISA PAIT

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Universidade Estadual Paulista “Julio de Mesquita Filho”, São Paulo, Brazil

JOSEPH D. STRAUBHAAR

Department of Radio-TV-Film, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

VOLUME GUEST ASSOCIATE AND ASSISTANT EDITORS

SAYONARA LEAL

Department of Sociology, University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil

NICOLE SPECIALE

Department of Sociology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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First edition 2017

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ISSN: 2050-2060 (Series)

List of Contributors

Acknowledgments

We extend our thanks to the many people who have worked to make this publication possible. We would like to call attention to the often unseen work of the many individuals whose support has been indispensable in publishing these volumes. Regarding the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section in the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), we thank the Section Council for continued sponsorship of the ESMC Series. Our thanks also go to our Editorial Board Members for their service. In addition, at Emerald Publishing, we deeply appreciate Jennifer McCall’s support of the series and the many people at Emerald Group Publishing whose contributions bring the volumes to press. Further, we especially recognize the Guest Editors who have shared their extraordinary expertise: (in alphabetical order) Pedro Aguiar, John Baldwin, Antonio C. La Pastina, Monica Martinez, Sonia Virgínia Moreira, Heloisa Pait, and Joseph D. Straubhaar. Finally our thanks also goes to Guest Associate Editor Sayonara Leal and Guest Assistant Editor Nicole Speciale for their fine work.

Introduction

Presenting the contributions of media and communication scholars from across the Americas, Volume 13 explores the evolving media environment of one of the world’s most fascinating societies: Brazil. The authors of this volume address important themes grouped into five sections: Brazilian Television, Cinema, and Media; The Brazilian Media Industry; News and Journalism in Brazil; Social Movements and Protest in Brazil; and Brazilian Perspectives on Media and Communications Theory. While selections encompass research on emergent phenomena, as well as studies with a historical or longitudinal dimension, they are united in their focus on Brazil, “the country of the future” in the words of Stefan Zweig because of its economic dynamism and cultural openness, as well as geographic and demographic diversity. Brazil was named as one of the four emerging BRIC economies. In a wave of economic growth and social change in the 1990s through 2010s, more than 40 million people of 200 million moved from working poor or working class into the lower middle class, while other millions moved upwards from there. While Brazil’s economic growth has brought it into the spotlight in the last two decades, Brazil has been prominent as a cultural producer for far longer. Indeed, at least since the 1970s, Brazil has been known for the dynamism of its media and culture. It has been a global exporter of music, film, and television, particularly its telenovelas, and a major media power in both Latin America and the Portuguese-speaking or Lusophone world. More recently, it has been in the forefront of world innovation in social media and social movements. Brazil is one of the world’s most interesting media powers to study. The chapters in this volume will add a great deal to our understanding of trends in one of the largest and most important media and communication environments in the world.

Section I: Brazilian Television, Cinema, and Media

The first section assembles three contributions providing insight into the distinctive cultural characteristics of Brazilian media, including film. The first chapter is entitled “The Cangaço in Brazilian Cinema” by Marcelo Dídimo Souza Vieira and deals with the film genre of the Cangaço, a form of social or folk banditry that occurred in the Northeast of Brazil between 1870 and 1940 and served as inspiration for a broad range of artistic endeavors, including Guimarães Rosa’s masterpiece “Grande Sertão: Veredas.” This chapter presents a historical survey and analysis of Cangaço films, highlighting their relevance to Brazilian cinema. As the chapter explains, the Cangaço movement has inspired many films over the years. The author explores the contribution of Cangaço-inspired productions to Brazilian cinema, as well as the particular characteristics that constitute the genre. Following a historical survey of the Cangaço, the films were divided into different categories and ranked in terms of relevance. Only the most important are discussed in this chapter. The Cangaço has been portrayed in Brazilian cinema through the decades in diverse ways, dating back to the 1920s. After becoming a consolidated film genre in the 1950s, then known as Nordestern (a portmanteau of Western and Nordeste, the name of the North-Eastern region in Portuguese), the Cangaço finally acquired a proper structure, featuring multiple Western references among its common characteristics. In the 1960s, Glauber Rocha, one of the most prominent filmmakers of the Cinema Novo avant-garde movement, added his own symbolism to the genre. Eventually, the genre was reinvigorated by directors who combined it with other genres such as comedy, documentary, and erotic films. Despite its strong association with Brazil, the genre has not been thoroughly investigated by researchers. This chapter presents a historical survey and analysis of Cangaço films, highlighting their relevance to Brazilian cinema.

The section continues with another chapter on Brazilian cinema, entitled “News Media and Historiography in Brazilian Cinema” by Cory A. Hahn. This chapter examines the relationship between news media in Cinema Novo films to underscore the impact of their shared discourse on the history of Brazilian films. The author discusses the employment of news media within representative Cinema Novo films, namely a major canonical film (Entranced Earth) alongside lesser-known films (Threatened City, Freedom of the Press). The narratives in these films speak to an ongoing debate concerning the role of print and televisual journalism in the increasingly repressive political environment of the 1960s military dictatorship. The chapter concentrates on interpretations of film narrative, of specific scenes, and of shot and shot-sequencing, and situates these interpretations within the broader historical context of the established laws and commissions of 1960s Brazil. The present research is limited to films of the 1960s but has implications for the interpretation of many Brazilian films and for Brazilian film history writ large. When considered together in the light of their shared reflections concerning news media, these films bring up previously underexamined issues within the respective fields of communication studies and Brazilian film studies.

The next chapter, written by Ana Carolina Escosteguy and Lúcia Loner Coutinho, shifts attention from cinema to TV. Their contribution, “The Rise of The Working Poor within the Brazilian Mediascape: The Mythology of Social Inequality’s Disappearance,” traces depictions of working class characters in a media corpus composed of telenovelas produced by Rede Globo from 2002 to 2012. They argue that, while attention has been paid to the recent subversion of some of the negative stereotypes surrounding the underprivileged classes circulating within the media, they still do not do justice to the complexities of social inequality in contemporary Brazil. They show that mainstream media treatments of social inequality focus entirely on displaying the lifestyle of the underprivileged “working poor,” while overlooking many other aspects of social inequality and deprivation. This chapter proposes a central question: could media visibility be masking the complexity of economic class in Brazilian society, which, despite recent improvements, is still marked by stark social divides? This issue is approached from a cultural perspective focused on analyzing media representations of underprivileged groups, following Douglas Kellner’s (1995) ideas that suggest a contextualizing account of media cultural artifacts.

Section II: The Brazilian Media Industry

The next section of the book deals with the media industry in today’s Brazil. To open the section, Claudio Nazareno places Brazil in comparative perspective with “The Introduction of Digital TV in Brazil: Lessons from the British and French Experience.” This chapter focuses on Brazil’s distinctive transition to digital television as compared to these two European countries. It shows how, in the case of Brazil, unicasting solely reflected the interests of commercial broadcasters. Comparisons between Brazil and France and the United Kingdom explain why the European choice for multicasting is one of the reasons for the success of digital television penetration in these two countries. By analyzing viewing shares and the financial relevance of the public broadcasters, BBC and France Televisions, to the national broadcasting spaces, the study concludes that these European traditional broadcasters profited from digital television, despite their exposure to a more competitive environment. Thus, the model chosen in Brazil continues to hamper Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) and national audiovisual industries’ development, as well as slowing digital take-up. In Brazil, public broadcasting continued to play a marginal role in the national broadcasting space and the audiovisual market, concentrated in a few local companies. The findings of this comparative study, developed from a political economy perspective, provide important insights into both Brazilian and European telecommunications policy.

Next, Sonia Aguiar contributes “Regional Media Groups in Brazil: Geographic Scale and Organizations.” This chapter presents an overview of the Brazilian regional media groups that are characterized by cross-ownership across outlets in the four main types of news media: print dailies, radio, over the air television, and web. The research uses institutional documents to explore the history and operating mode of the groups that own the 50 bestselling newspapers in the country. The theoretical approach is guided by the notion of “spatialization” applied to business communication by Vincent Mosco, and by the concepts of “region,” “regionality,” and “regionalization,” based upon authors aligned with the critical thinking approach in the field of geography. The study identifies the multiple geographical scales at which these groups operate, as well as their dominant business models and the sources of their owners’ capital. Based on this analysis, it argues that the variables that are applied to the large-circulation media at a national level cannot be automatically transferred to the regional and local levels. This chapter provides a distinctive and nuanced approach to the Brazilian media system that can inspire other studies on regional communication.

The third contribution is entitled “Advertising in the Context of Radio Programming: From Ad Formats toward Ad Meta Formats,” by Clóvis Reis. This piece of research analyzes how ad formats are incorporated into the structure of radio programming and provides an original scheme for classifying advertisements in light of the overall organization of the radio programming schedule. The essay consists of three parts. The first part presents the main ad formats aired on the radio, and the second discusses the challenges for classifying ad formats based on the characteristics usually employed in most studies. Finally, the third part of the chapter proposes a new taxonomy for the classification of radio advertising. While scholarship from Spain and the United States provide the theoretical framework that serves as a main foundation for this work, Brazilian data forms the empirical basis for the classification of the ad formats in this research. The approach moves the description of ad formats from an individual definition of each type of announcement – the ad formats – toward a broader analysis of radio advertisements, which groups the set of compositions in ad meta formats. The meta formats are distinguishable by the distribution mode or insertion mode of the ads in the radio programming.

Section II wraps up with “The Name of the Other: Media, Heterotopias, and Border Country Interactions” by Ada Cristina Machado da Silveira, Isabel Padilha Guimarães, and Clarissa Schwartz. This study examines how cultural producers represent the geographic regions where Brazil borders other nations. Located in what is referred to as the Southern Arc, the first city examined, Foz do Iguaçu, lies on the border between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. The second city is Tabatinga, in the Amazon region, part of the conurbation region made up by a Colombian city, and including the Peruvian border, coming to be known as the Northern Arc. The research was produced through the triangulation of primary data obtained in two trips into the field, carried out in 2013 and 2014, secondary data (official and semi-official) and academic bibliography. This chapter provides a relevant contribution to our understanding of communication processes carried out in two different regions of Brazil, both of them located far from the spotlights of mainstream Brazilian media. The authors employ a theoretical framework blending geography of communication with sociological and anthropological perspectives on communication in borderland regions.

Section III: News and Journalism in Brazil

The third section brings together three studies on the fields of news and journalism. The section opens with “Mapping Journalistic Startups in Brazil: An Exploratory Study” by Beatriz Becker and Igor Waltz. This qualitative study aims to highlight the experiences of emerging journalistic practices. It reflects upon entrepreneurialism in journalism to explore the extent to which this phenomenon represents innovation in current journalistic practices. Over 30 case studies of Brazilian journalistic startups were examined. The method adopted in this analysis consists of four complementary stages. First, the authors identify Brazilian media’s political and economic standing and the impacts of digitization on this sector. Second, they assess journalistic startup experiences in Brazil through innovation and entrepreneurialism. Third, they map these cases in terms of four criteria applying to journalistic activities. And finally, they conduct interviews with the journalists responsible for these startups. Previously, startups were associated with oppositional forms of journalism geared towards producing alternative views of Brazil and the world. Additionally, journalism is tied to political and economic interests immersed in the neoliberalism and individualism that characterize the global market. However, startups also represent a marriage of innovation and conservation in news production, thus creating potential for the independence of journalism, a crucial asset for the democratic societies utilizing various factual and forms of news productions. Startups certainly represent reconfigurations in journalistic practices which should be continuously studied.

This contribution is followed by Pedro Aguiar’s “Brazilian News Agencies: Between Media Conglomerates and the State.” The chapter addresses the distinctive aspects of Brazil’s news agencies and the Brazilian news syndication market. Approaching the subject from the perspective of the political economy and geographies of communication, the chapter reveals the pattern of Brazil’s public and private prevailing models regarding the wire services industry. The first model is that of a state-run provider servicing the peripheral and alternative media. The second model involves major media conglomerates, which set up their syndication services labeled as “news agencies” in order to increase profits with no extra labor. In the latter case, an asymmetrical relationship of dependency and circularity ensues between these major conglomerates and regional media groups, who rely on these “news agencies” to perpetuate their dominance in local markets. Here, the dominant model reflects that of the so-called “news agencies” owned by large private media conglomerates. These agencies syndicate second-hand copy created by their flagship dailies sold to smaller newspapers in regional cities and towns. This study is the first to paint a detailed picture of the Brazilian news syndication ecology in the English language. This chapter uses data, updated as of 2016, and is illustrated with schematic diagrams to present the scenario and the institutional network formed by these organizations.

The section closes with Fábio Henrique Pereira’s “A Study of Brazilian Intellectual-Journalists: Changes to Journalism (1950–1990).” This chapter examines the professional identities of Brazilian journalists through the life stories of ten carefully selected intellectual-journalists, individuals whose journalistic activities have crossed over into non-journalistic fields and spaces of practice. This study delves into their life stories to figure out how they managed their professional reputations and careers within these multiple spaces of practice. The narratives were taken from qualitative semi-structured interviews, and supported by additional research such as interviews, biographies, and articles which have been published about their lives. This chapter forces us to reexamine the current dominant explanation for the changes in Brazilian journalism by showing that crossover reputations take a long time to build. Moreover, they result from complex and often unpredictable interactions among the worlds of journalism, culture, and politics. Thus, intellectual-journalists sometimes find themselves stretched between competing professional identities and spaces of practice.

Section IV: Social Movements and Protest in Brazil

The fourth section presents essays that consider the role of communication in formal and informal social activism in Brazil. It commences with the chapter “Protests in Brazil: Mobile Networks and Devices as Tools of Protest” by Breno Maciel Souza Reis, Liana Gross Furini, and Sandra Mara Garcia Henriques. This chapter aims to investigate the uses and appropriations of mobile digital technologies and networks through an examination of their popular manifestations in Brazil. They take a phenomenological approach to unravel the ways in which mobile communications technologies affect social protest. Documents and quantitative data published by Brazilian research institutes and the press form the evidentiary basis for this study. Direct observations relying on an autoethnographic approach are used to provide a contextual framework. The findings suggest that mobile devices and networks were employed as protest tools for individuals and social groups. Where mobile technology has been appropriated in conjunction with new forms of social organization, it can serve as a tool for citizen empowerment and cyberactivism taking place in both virtual and physical environments. Mobile technologies in Brazil have both enhanced possibilities for activists’ social interaction, information sharing, and media broadcasting. They have also undercut the credibility of traditional information sources.

The theme of protest is also central to “Media Epiphanies: Selvies and Silences in São Paulo Urban Protests” by Heloisa Pait and Juliana Laet. Looking at a series of recent large street protests in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, the chapter examines the relationship between political action, urban space, and media use. The authors specifically look at what they call “media epiphanies,” moments in which the public becomes aware of its existence as a mediated public, that is, as a public that is forged through the use of a particular media. The chapter relies on extensive participant observation and interviews for the description of the June 2013 protests and the massive rallies of 2015 and 2016 preceding the president’s impeachment. It examines the experience of the participants to understand the meaning of the phenomenon, using a combination of Frankfurt School and Toronto School approaches. The fluid protests in June of 2013 challenged the political status quo and served as a springboard for subsequent mediated demonstrations. These protests also incorporated traditional cultural forms. The 2016 impeachment House vote, by contrast, was a true media event. It reconstructed the fractured political dialogue of representation in both positive and negative terms. The authors argue that the concept of media epiphany can be used to assess the strength of demonstrations and the meaning of collective action in general. The concept allows one to better examine the complex intersections between forms of communications, social formations, physical geospatial environments, and the experience of the individual in contemporary cities.

The section continues with “Headlines and Hashtags Protests and Mobilizations in Brazil” by Rose Marie Santini, Danilo Silva, Túlio Brasil, Rafael Rezende, Camyla Terra, Heloísa Traiano, Kenzo Seto, Marcela De Orlandis, and Clara Rescala. The chapter examines possible relationships between use of social media in online mobilizations and mainstream media coverage (print media) in the June 2013 Brazilian protests, a series of demonstrations initially provoked by a rise in bus ticket prices. The study draws on comparisons between news stories taken from leading Brazilian newspapers (O Globo, Folha de S. Paulo, Estadão and O Dia) and the posts of the most influential Twitter users who disseminated messages about these events during the period from June 1, 2013 to June 30, 2013. This research analyzed the extent to which messages from these Twitter posters anticipated the events occurring on the streets. It also looked at the correspondences between these messages and the news stories about the protests. The results show trends in the emerging dynamics of social organization that may indicate the role of old and new media in today's Brazilian politics. In particular, the authors seek to determine the degree to which social media messaging anticipates street protest activities.

Section IV concludes with “Countercultural Happenings: The Performance of Revolt in Brazil's Tropicália Movement” by John Baldwin, Phillip Chidester, and Laura Robinson. This research makes a fresh contribution by exploring an understudied aspect of the Tropicália movement: visual performance. After offering a historical overview, the research examines the movement’s communicative legacy. They contend that, in addition to song’s lyrics and musical symbols, it is vital to consider a third dimension: visual performance. The addition of the visual allows for a more fundamental understanding of the many complex meanings that the Tropicalistas constructed in their resistance to political oppression, as well as broader cultural mores and expectations. Their examination of archival performance videos reveals that Tropicalistas employed modes of dress and a specific, intentional orientation toward their listeners as particularly powerful tools of expression. Revealing these two dimensions of Tropicália performance allows us to better understand the importance of performance as a key element of resistance through which they challenged the oppressive military regime and question assumptions about Brazilian national identity.

Section V: Theory: Brazilian Perspectives on Media and Communications Theory

Section V closes the volume with Brazilian perspectives on social theory. It opens with the chapter entitled “Modalities and Offshoots of Communication in the Lifeworld: Meaning, Experience, and Interaction” by Ângela Cristina Salgueiro Marques and Luis Mauro Sá Martino. It elaborates a phenomenological framework for the concept of “communication” by drawing mainly on the notion of “lifeworld,” created by Husserl and developed by Habermas. The concept of “lifeworld” is approached as a communication-grounded idea. The theoretical paper endeavors to show that the phenomenological notion of “lifeworld” might be key to a critical understanding of main constructivist approaches in communication theory. It could be particularly illuminating where the focus is on a “reality” which results from intersubjective interactions in everyday life. This essay argues that the concept of the “lifeworld” provides a useful analytical lens with which to understand communication as a form of social interaction, whether this communication is mediated by media technologies or not. The chapter discusses the concept of “lifeworld,” framing its relational and communicative aspects as fundamental to the notion of “reality” as an interactive social creation. It also proposes the understanding of “communication” grounded on this phenomenological notion. Finally, it discusses some problems and limits of this approach, offering an alternative approach to conventional communication theory.

The next offering is entitled “Technophilias and technophobias vis-à-vis research & development of cybercultur@” by Jorge A. González. González offers a powerful critique of technology-related ideologies, paying particular attention to De Kerckhove’s work on social networks. The chapter makes the case that we should study society from the point of view of its symbolic production, which is comprised of three inseparable components: information, communication, and knowledge. To understand the complex relationships between society and technology, the text advocates the cultural fronts approach that is ideally suited to examine the social production of hegemony and subalternity. The contributions stem from the perspective of action research that the author calls cybercultur@, problematized as the collective development of intelligent self-determination capabilities. The author has continued this research in a comparative mode in Brazil, working with Cecilia Peruzzo and her group at the Methodist University in São Bernardo. The work has examined several communities in Brazil, including São Paulo, sites in the interior and in the Northeast, finding comparable phenomena in Brazil. This forms a comparative basis for these conclusions.

The third chapter is “The Hyperconnected contemporary society” by Brasilina Passarelli and Alan César Belo Angeluci. This chapter presents concepts based on research from the perspective of the 27-year-old Brazilian research center at the University of São Paulo – the School of the Future USP – representing ideas generated by waves of research carried out in both national surveys in Brazil and research with users of hundreds of public access centers in the state of São Paulo on the hyperconnected contemporary society. The authors engage with key themes and concepts including the Internet of things, big data, symptomatic shifts due to mobility and connectivity. In dialogue with the work of Bruno Latour, Manuel Castells, Luciano Floridi, Paul Gilster and many others, the chapter highlights the emergent roles of actor-network structures in the new economy with an eye to emphasizing new literacies. This fruitful theoretical framework not only guides the center's research but will likely influence other research groups studying society and hyperconnection in Brazil and beyond.

The volume closes with “Historic Consciousness and Ethnographic Research about ICTs: Practices and Uses amongst Family Farming in Southern Brazil” by Pedro Henrique Baptista Reis. The study presents findings obtained through ethnographic field research about the uses and practices of information and communication technologies among tobacco planters living in the region of Vale do Sol - Santa Cruz do Sul. This inquiry aims to better understand both the data and the data-gathering approaches deployed by biographical research based on in-depth and semi-structured interviews. The chapter connects ethnographic research, particularly biographical research, to media usage and appropriation practices. Biographical narratives are explored with an eye to understanding the experiences of the informants in historical context. This approach helps us focus on their historical consciousness, namely their lived experience of time and change. The chapter pays special attention to the ever-changing conditions of time and space, as this helps us to comprehend the incorporation of traditional media and new media into the everyday lives of the informants. These practices are evident in the social landscape of an ever more technologically colonized region.

Conclusions and Implications

These authors make distinct contributions to each of the five thematic sections: Brazilian Television, Cinema, and Media; The Brazilian Media Industry; News and Journalism in Brazil; Social Movements and Protest in Brazil; and Theory: Brazilian Perspectives on Media and Communications Theory. In shedding light on Brazilian society and perspectives on each of these areas, the volume synthesizes many of central issues in Brazilian media and communications research.

In Section I, Brazilian Television, Cinema, and Media, the collection addresses several historical issues in cinema with two chapters that address the development of key themes in cinema. Another examines key current issues with how the dominant television system represents social change with the very important case of the representation of the working poor on television. In Section II, The Brazilian Media Industry, other contributions provide excellent analysis of important industry issues such as regionalism and market power, government structure and regulation, and culture and media. As different chapters indicate, one of the key tensions in Brazil continues to be between national powers, such as TV Globo, and regional powers, such as the rising regional media groups. Another tension is between state regulation and the power of the media industry, a struggle reflected in the development of digital television in Brazil. In Section III, News and Journalism in Brazil, key contemporary issues in Brazilian journalism are also tackled. One chapter addresses the vitality and innovativeness of the news industry in terms of start-ups. Another contribution examines the ongoing tension between state and major private news companies in terms of news agencies, and who supplies news via syndication to the large number of small media outlets spread across a huge nation. Yet another chapter examines the notable phenomenon, unusual in a global context, of journalists pursuing careers as public intellectuals by examining the lives and careers of 10 such journalists. In Section IV, Social Movements and Protest in Brazil, we see how Brazil has been shaken by increasing and gradually morphing protest movements preceding the impeachment of a president. Three chapters examine different facets of these processes in fascinating and comprehensive ways. One looks at the role of mobiles and social media in facilitating the protest movements, adding a very useful perspective to a growing global interest in this question. The second explores the significant relationship between social media and the major news media, which is another important international issue prompting researchers to examine this relationship in a number of social movement sites. The third chapter uses participant observation to capture a more ethnographic view of how the protests in their epicenter in São Paulo developed. Stepping back in time, a fourth chapter looks at an earlier historical moment in which the Tropicalia movement, one of the key elements of the 1960s counter-culture in Brazil, used visual representation and performance to challenge the military governments then in power. Finally, the last section Theory: Brazilian Perspectives on Media and Communications Theory, covers some theoretical contributions from Brazil from quite diverse points of view vis-a-vis broad media, communication theories, and impacts of media and information. One examines the concept of the lifeworld as a means of theorizing and understanding social interaction through communication. Another conducts a rigorous theoretical examination of claims about social media and convergence from several theoretical points of view, including an original argument about cultural fronts and cybercultur@. Yet a third chapter builds on 27 years of research at one of Brazil’s main new media research centers, the School of the Future at the University of São Paulo to advance several theoretical reflections on increasing hyper-connectivity among many Brazilians, related to actor-network theory. Finally, the volume closes with an examination of historical consciousness as it relates to the incorporation of traditional media and new media into everyday life.

In conclusion, the volume provides an enlightening and highly useful snapshot of Brazilian research on several core issues of concern to media and communications scholars around the globe. It is obviously of interest to those who study Brazil, Latin America, and developing countries more generally, but there is much of interest here, too, to those following cinema history, the relationship of television to society, the dynamism of news media in a country where they are still quite vital, the relationship between social forces, social media and news media, and some fascinating theoretical perspectives.

Laura Robinson

Jeremy Schulz

Apryl Williams

Pedro Aguiar

John Baldwin

Antonio C. La Pastina

Monica Martinez

Sonia Virgínia Moreira

Heloisa Pait

Joseph D. Straubhaar

Sayonara Leal

Nicole Speciale

Editors

About the Editors

ESMC VOLUME EDITORS

Laura Robinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Santa Clara University. She earned her PhD from UCLA, where she held a Mellon Fellowship in Latin American Studies and received a Bourse d’Accueil at the École Normale Supérieure. In addition to holding a postdoctoral fellowship on a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation funded project at the USC Annenberg Center, Robinson has served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Cornell University and the Chair of CITAMS (formerly CITASA) for 2014–2015. Her research has earned awards from CITASA, AOIR, and NCA IICD. Robinson’s publications examine digital and informational inequalities, interaction and identity work, and digital media in Brazil, France, and the United States.

Jeremy Schulz is Visiting Scholar at the UC Berkeley Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and a Fellow at the Cambridge Institute. He has also served as an Affiliate at the UC San Diego Center for Research on Gender in the Professions and a Council Member of the ASA Section on Consumers and Consumption. Previously, he held an NSF funded postdoctoral fellowship at Cornell University after earning his PhD at UC Berkeley. His article, “Zoning the Evening,” received the Shils-Coleman Award from the ASA Theory Section. His publications include “Talk of Work” published in Theory and Society and “Shifting Grounds and Evolving Battlegrounds,” published in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology. He has also done research and has published in several other areas, including digital media, theory, qualitative research methods, work and family, and consumption.

Apryl Williams is Doctoral Candidate and Diversity Fellow in the Department of Sociology as well as Research Associate at the Center on Conflict and Development at Texas A&M University. Her current research focuses on race-based differences in digital media use among American millennials. Williams’ other research interests include global media flows, immigration, identity, race and class, embodiment, and social theory. Her work has been published in the International Journal of Communication, Digital Sociologies, and Information, Communication & Society.

GUEST VOLUME EDITORS

Pedro Aguiar is a PhD Candidate at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil, supervised by Sonia Virginia Moreira. He earned his MA in Communications from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 2010 with a thesis on the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool of the 1970s and 1980s. In 2014, he coedited the book Agências De Notícias: Perspectivas Contemporâneas (News Agencies: Contemporary Perspectives), the first in Brazil specifically dedicated to news agencies. From 2013 to 2015, he was also an Assistant Lecturer at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Brazil, teaching courses on World News and News Agency Journalism. His current research is a worldwide survey of state-owned news agencies in the Global South. Pedro also worked as a journalist in a number of newsrooms, both in print, broadcasting and news agencies, always as an editor for foreign news.

John Baldwin (PhD, Arizona State University, 1994) is Professor of Culture and Communication, Communication Theory and Qualitative Research Methods at Illinois State University. He has coedited a book on definitions of culture (Redefining Culture, 2006) and coauthored a textbook, Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life (2014). His areas of interest include intercultural and intergroup communication, including adjustment, competence, as well as identity, prejudice, and tolerance. Recent research focuses on the social construction of identities in Brazilian rock music of the dictatorship era. He is conversationally fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, but also has interest in other languages and cultures.

Antonio C. La Pastina (PhD 1999, University of Texas at Austin) is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. His research focuses primarily on the ethnographic investigation of audiences’ engagement with media texts. He is currently working on a manuscript analyzing his decade-and-a-half ethnographic work in rural Brazil focusing primarily on the relationships between television, the Internet, and social transformation. He has published extensively on telenovelas, audiences, and ethnographic methodology, with periodical forays in issues of representations of non-mainstream populations. His work has appeared in Critical Studies in Media and Communication, Journal of Broadcast and Electronic Media, Gazette, and Qualitative Inquiry, among others.

Monica Martinez is Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture of the Universidade de Sorocaba, São Paulo. She earned her PhD and MA in communication at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo. Thereafter, while holding a postdoctoral position in Digital Narratives with the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação in the Communication Department of the Universidade Metodista of São Paulo she undertook research in collaboration with the Department of Radio-Television-Film in the College of Communication at The University of Texas. Among her books and peer-reviewed articles, her publications include Jornalismo Literário: tradição e inovação (Insular, 2016), and Jornada do Herói: estrutura narrativa mítica na construção de histórias de vida em jornalismo (Annablume/Fapesp, 2008), among others. She is the co-founder of Núcleo Granja Viana associated with the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Her research interests include epistemology of communication, contemporary narratives, and literary journalism.

Sonia Virgínia Moreira is Professor in the Department of Journalism of the Social Communication School at the Universidade do Estado in Rio de Janeiro. She is the author of several articles and book chapters on journalism and communication-related topics. Among the books she has published are Rádio Nacional, o Brasil em sintonia (The National Radio Station, Brazil tuned in) (1988, in partnership with Luiz Carlos Saroldi); O Rádio no Brasil (Radio in Brazil) (2nd edition, 2000); Rádio em transição – tecnologias e leis nos Estados Unidos e no Brasil (Radio in Transition – Technologies and Laws in the United States and in Brazil) (2002); 70 anos de radiojornalismo no Brasil (70 Years of Radio Journalism in Brazil) (2011). She was elected president of the Brazilian Society for Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication (2002–2005) and was also its international relations director (2005–2008). Presently, she is Vice President of the Brazilian Society of Journalism Researchers (SBPJor) and coordinates the Brazil-US Colloquium on Communication Studies.

Heloisa Pait investigates the challenges posed by the introduction of new means of communication for democratic life, with an emphasis on the personal dilemmas individuals encounter when presented with unknown socilabilities. In her doctoral dissertation at the New School for Social Research, she investigated the personal challenges television soap opera writers and viewers faced in trying to make mass communication a meaningful activity. She has written about the reception of international news, on media use by Brazilian youth, and on the disruptive role of the Internet in the Brazilian political environment. With her students, Heloisa investigates conceptions of memory and media use, the role of media in notions of secrecy in international relations, and the nature of public protests in Brazilian cities. Dealing with a broad range of subjects, she recurrently visits the issue of individual effort to engage in communication with others, an activity always disrupted and reconstructed – revealed – by every material transformation of media. Heloisa Pait, a Fulbright alumni, is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Júlio de Mesquita Filho University, Brazil. She is part of the Advisory Board of Open Knowledge Brazil and collaborates with various Brazilian and American academic and cultural blogs. Heloisa Pait’s fiction work has been published in Brazil and in the United States.

Joseph D. Straubhaar is Amon G. Carter Centennial Professor of Communications in the Department of Radio-TV-Film at The University of Texas at Austin. He was the Director of the Center for Brazilian Studies within the Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies, 2003–2006. His primary teaching, research, and writing interests are in global media and cultural theory, media and migration, digital media and the digital divide in the United States and other countries, and global television production and flow. His graduate teaching includes media theory, global media, media and migration, Latin American media, and ethnographic research methods. His undergraduate teaching covers the same range plus an introduction to media studies. He does research in Brazil, other Latin American countries, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and has taken student groups to Latin America and Asia. He has done seminars abroad on media research, television programming strategies, and telecommunications privatization. He is on the editorial board for Communication Theory, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, Comunicación y Sociedad, Chinese Journal of Communication, and Revista INTERCOM.

VOLUME GUEST ASSOCIATE AND ASSISTANT EDITORS

Sayonara Leal holds a PhD in Sociology, and is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Brasilia (UnB), Brazil. She also conducts research for the Communication Policies Lab at UnB and the Anthropology Lab of Science and Technology. Her recent publications have appeared in venues including: Revue Économie et Sociétés, Revista Estado & Sociedade, Liinc em Revista, and Revista de direito de informática e telecomunicações.

Nicole Speciale is graduating from Santa Clara University in 2017 with a degree in Sociology, and an emphasis on women’s and gender studies. She previously conducted ethnographic research in the area of eating disorders, studying the resultant restructuring of identity, and micro and meso-level relationships. She is currently researching LGBT Organizational Effectiveness for her honors thesis, which will be published in the Silicon Valley Notebook. After interning with a program for transgender children, she plans to continue with post-graduate education by earning a PhD.

About the Authors

Pedro Aguiar is a PhD candidate at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brazil, supervised by Sonia Virginia Moreira. He earned his MA in Communications from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 2010 with a thesis on the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool of the 1970s and 1980s. In 2014, he co-edited the book Agências de Notícias: perspectivas contemporâneas (News Agencies: Contemporary Perspectives), the first in Brazil specifically dedicated to news agencies. From 2013 to 2015 he was also an assistant lecturer at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), Brazil, teaching courses on World News and News Agency Journalism. His current research is a worldwide survey of state-owned news agencies in the Global South. Pedro also worked as a journalist in a number of newsrooms, both in print, broadcasting, and news agencies, always as an editor for foreign news.

Sonia Aguiar (PhD, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) is a journalist and Professor at the Federal University of Sergipe, Brazil. She holds a PhD in Information Science and Communications (1996) and a postdoctoral research in Geography at the Federal Fluminense University (2015). Since 2011, she has been leading studies that bring together Journalism, the Geographies of Communication, and the Political Economy of Media. From her postdoctoral research, she authored the book Territórios do Jornalismo: geografias dos grupos de mídia local e regional no Brasil (Territories of Journalism: geographies of local and regional media groups in Brazil, 2016). Currently, she leads the multi-institutional research group on Geographies of Regional Communication (GCR), and coordinates a study about the main media groups in the Northeastern Region of Brazil, emphasizing their flagship newspapers and web portals.

Alan César Belo Angeluci (PhD, University of São Paulo) is Professor in the School of Communication at the Municipal University of São Caetano do Sul, São Paulo, Brazil. He is also an associate researcher at the School of the Future – USP. He has been a postdoctoral fellow at both University of Texas at Austin and University of São Paulo. His research interests are at the intersection of communication, new media, and technologies, focusing on social and cultural impacts. He has edited the book Comunicação Transmídia (ediPUCRS, 2016) and is the coordinator of Smart Media & Users Research Group of CNPq and Digital Contents and Technological Convergences Research Group of the Brazilian Society for the Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication (Intercom).

John Baldwin (PhD, Arizona State University, 1994) is Professor of culture and communication, communication theory, and qualitative research methods at Illinois State University. He has co-edited a book on definitions of culture (Redefining Culture, 2006) and co-authored a textbook (Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, 2014). His areas of interest include intercultural and intergroup communication, including adjustment, competence, as well as identity, prejudice, and tolerance. Recent research focuses on the social construction of identities in Brazilian rock music of the dictatorship era. He is conversationally fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, but also has interest in other languages and cultures.

Pedro Henrique Baptista Reis graduated with a PhD in Media Studies from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. Pedro just finished his first Post-Doctoral Internship, also at PUC-RS.

Beatriz Becker is journalist and Associate Professor of the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture and the Department of Languages and Expressions at School of Communication, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She holds a Research Productivity Scholarship from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, Brazil). Ms. Becker holds a PhD in Communication and Culture from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She has been a postdoctoral fellow at both Goldsmiths College – University of London – and Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. She leads the Research Group Media, Audiovisual Journalism and Education, is the author of the books Television and TV News: Transitions (2016); Thinking and Doing Audiovisual Journalism (2012); The Language of TV News (2005), and coauthor of Pantanal: The Reinvention of Soap Opera (2008). She was partner-founder and vice-president of the Brazilian Journalism Researchers Association (SBPJor) and executive editor of the Brazilian Journalism Research (BJR). Nowadays, she is the coordinator of the Journalism Work Group of the National Graduate Programs in Communication Association (Compós, Brazil).

Túlio Brasil is a master student in Digital Content Production at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Senior Analyst of Sales at Sony Music Entertainment Brazil. His research interests include social media and music business.

Phillip Chidester is Associate Professor in the School of Communication at Illinois State University. He is an MA and PhD graduate of the University of Kansas, and currently serves as a member of the editorial board for The Western Journal of Communication. Phil recently completed a sabbatical visit to Fortaleza, Brazil, where he studied the cultural influences and implications of forró as a Northeastern Brazilian musical form as part of a book project on song as symbol system. His research interests include media and popular culture; contemporary mythological systems; popular song as symbol system; cultural and critical theory; contemporary theories of rhetoric; and print journalism and social identification.

Lúcia Loner Coutinho currently holds a post doc position in the Communications department at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), currently working on reception studies. She earned her doctoral degree in communications at Pontifical University of Rio Grande Sul/Brazil, with a thesis on cultural identities on teen-drama television narratives.

Marcela De Orlandis is undergraduate student in Social Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Management Assistant at Procter & Gamble. Her research interests include Micro Sociology applied to Marketing.

Ana Carolina Escosteguy is a Professor at the Pontifical University of Rio Grande Sul/Brazil and also a researcher of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq/Brazil. Her research fields are media and cultural studies, media and cultural identities, reception studies, and uses of information and communication technologies.

Liana Gross Furini is a former Assistant Professor at PUCRS and FACCAT, where she was responsible for teaching undergraduate courses related to the digital communication field. She received her M.Sc. in Social Communication from PUCRS, Brazil, the same University where she received her Bachelor degree in Social Communication (Advertising). Liana is member of Ubitec (Research Group on Ubiquitous Technology), linked to the Graduation Program in Social Communication at PUCRS. Her research is focused on Internet, Sharing Culture, User Empowerment, and Internet of Things.

Jorge A. González of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México has authored dozens of publications and several books in media and cultural studies. He won the First Worldwide Competition for Young Sociologists in 1990 for the International Sociological Association. He has served as Head of the Research Program in Complex Communication at the Universidad lberoamericana in Mexico, as a Tinker Visiting Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and as UNESCO Communication Professor at Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. He was the inaugural researcher of the Contemporary Culture Research Program at the Universidad de Colima, Mexico. In 2012, he got a FAPESP endowment for research on Cybercultur@ in social movements in Brazil.

• https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jorge_Gonzalez27

• http://www.ceiich.unam.mx/0/21Curri.php?tblPersonalAcademico_id=5

• https://unam.academia.edu/JORGEAGONZALEZ

Cory A. Hahn received his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 2016. His dissertation, titled “News on Film: Cinematic Historiography in Cuba and Brazil,” considers the intersection of news media and film in both countries leading up to and leaving behind the Cold War. His research interests include Latin American literature and film, news media, new technologies, criminology, and visuality. He currently teaches Literature, Poetics, and U.S. History at Veritas Preparatory Academy in Phoenix, Arizona.

Sandra Mara Garcia Henriques received her PhD in Social Communication from PUCRS, the same University where she received her M.Sc. degree. She received her Bachelor degree in Social Communication (Journalism) from UCPel. She is a member and former coordinator of Ubitec (Research Group on Ubiquitous Technology), linked to the Graduation Program in Social Communication at PUCRS. She researches the Web Communication field, networks on the Internet, mobile technologies of communication and information, and mobile social networks.

Juliana Laet holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and a master’s degree in Social Sciences from the São Paulo State University Julio de Mesquita Filho. She investigates the role of digital media in shaping contemporary forms of collective action. In her master thesis, she analyzed the use of digital media by street protesters during the São Paulo June 2013 demonstrations. This research, funded by CAPES – Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, was used in the chapter appearing in this volume.

Rose Marie Santini, PhD, is Professor at the School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Professor of the Graduate Program in Communication Technologies and Languages of Communication of UFRJ, and Graduate Program in Information Science of the Agreement IBICT/UFRJ. She has been a postdoctoral fellow at Barcelona University. She leads the Research Group NetLab – Networks, Education and Technology Lab. She is the author of the books Admirável chip novo: a música na era da internet (2006) and Produção colaborativa na Sociedade da Informação (2008). She currently researches the social uses of information and communication technologies and their consequences for the collaborative production and social transformation, from the applied microsociology methods and social network analysis.

Ângela Cristina Salgueiro Marques, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Social Communication at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences, Social Communication Department, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. She received her doctorate in Social Communication from the UFMG and her post-doctorate from the Université Sthendal, Grenoble III, France. Her most recent research examines the relations between aesthetics and politics, focusing on the role of media images in democratic public spheres and struggle for social recognition.

Luis Mauro Sá Martino, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Communication and Social Sciences at Faculty Cásper Líbero, São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently Professor at the Master Degree Program in Communication at this University. He received his PhD in Social Sciences at Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, PUC-SP. His research interests are mainly in the area of digital culture, religion and communication, epistemology of communication, political conversation and democracy.

Claudio Nazareno is a Senior Specialist for Communication, Science and Technology and Informatics for the Office of Legislative Counsel (Consultoria Legislativa) for the House of Representatives (Câmara dos Deputados) in Brazil. Sponsored by his work, he finished his PhD in Roehampton University, London, in 2012, with a thesis entitled “Regulation and the promotion of national audiovisual content in the era of digital convergence: a comparative analysis of the United Kingdom, France and Brazil,” supervised by Paul Rixon and Andrea Esser. Claudio was a visiting researcher at the Faculdade de Comunicação at the Universidade de Brasilia, in 2013.

Isabel Padilha Guimarães is Journalism Professor at the Universidade Federal de Pelotas (Brazil). She graduated with a degree in Social Communication – Journalism – at PUCRS (1999), master (2004), and doctoral degree (2010) in Social Communication at the same institution and postdoctoral fellow DOCFIX – Capes/Fapergs of Communication Postgraduate Program at UFSM. Guimarães leads the research group “Media, Identities and Borders.” Her research interests also include cinematography, documentary, and imaginary.

Heloisa Pait, a Fulbright Alumna, teaches at the São Paulo State University Julio de Mesquita Filho and investigates the role of new means of communication in democratic life. In her doctoral dissertation, she analyzed how soap opera writers and viewers attempted to make mass communication a meaningful activity. She has written on the reception of international news, on media use by Brazilian youth, and on the disruptive role of the Internet in the Brazilian political environment. She takes active part in debates on Brazilian current affairs, contributing to specialized blogs and the press.

Brasilina Passarelli is Full Professor in the Department of Information and Culture and Assistant Head of The School of Communication and Arts at The University of São Paulo, Brazil. She is also the Scientific Coordinator of the School of the Future USP. She studies digital inclusion, teaching teachers new pedagogies with ICT, media and information literacy, youth new uses of digital media, and coding as a new discipline to formal and informal learning in Brazilian schools.

Fábio Henrique Pereira is lecturer at the Faculty of Communication at University of Brasilia (Brazil). He is also associated researcher at the Research Center in Information and Communication – ReSIC at Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) and at the Centre de recherches sur l'action politique en Europe – ARÈNE (France). He wrote the book Jornalistas intelectuais no Brasil (Summus 2011). His researches focus on theory of journalism, sociology of intellectuals, sociology of journalists, and professional identity. He is executive editor of Brazilian Journalism Research review.

Breno Maciel Souza Reis is a PhD Candidate in Communication and Information Program in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), in Brazil. He received his M.Sc degree in Social Communications from PUCRS, and his Bachelor degree in Social Communication from the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES). He is a researcher at LAD (Laboratory of Digital Artifacts) at UFRGS and a member of Ubitec (Research Group on Ubiquitous Technologies) at PUCRS. His research is focused on digital games, the urban, social, and informational spaces and the interfaces between connected devices in digital networks and locative alternate reality mobile games in the contemporary city spaces.

Clóvis Reis holds a PhD in Mass Communication (University of Navarra, Spain). He is Professor at Furb – University of Blumenau in Brazil in the Department of Communication and in the Regional Development Graduate Program (MA, PhD). He is the author of Propaganda no rádio: Os formatos de anúncio (“Radio advertising: The ad formats”. Blumenau, Edifurb, 2008), Realidade regional em comunicação (“Regional realities in mass communication”. Blumenau, Edifurb, 2009), Os gêneros jornalísticos nas emissoras de rádio (“Radio journalism genres”. Blumenau, Edifurb, 2010).

Clara Rescala is a Postgraduate Student in Cultural Goods: Culture, Economics and Management at Fundação Getúlio Vargas and Artistic Programming Assistant at Vivo Rio. Her research interests include social contagion, autonomy in the cultural sector, creative economy, and cultural consumption habits.

Rafael Rezende is an undergraduate student in Social Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Coordinator of Direct Communication on the political campaign of the candidate for City Hall of Rio de Janeiro Marcelo Freixo. His research interests include activism and social mobilization, collective funding and collaborative economy, social participation and open government.

Laura Robinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Santa Clara University. She earned her PhD from UCLA, where she held a Mellon Fellowship in Latin American Studies and received a Bourse d’Accueil at the École Normale Supérieure. In addition to holding a postdoctoral fellowship on a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation funded project at the USC Annenberg Center, Robinson has served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Cornell University and the Chair of CITAMS (formerly CITASA) for 2014–2015. Her research has earned awards from CITASA, AOIR, and NCA IICD. Robinson’s publications explore digital and informational inequalities, interaction and identity work, as well as digital media in Brazil, France, and the United States.

Clarissa Schwartz is Guest Professor in the Communication Science Department of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (Brazil) and Capes – PNPD postdoctoral fellow in the Graduate Program in Communication Studies, UFSM. She holds an undergraduate in Journalism (1998), Master's (2007), and Doctorate e (2012) in Rural Extension at Federal university of Santa Maria. Schwartz is a member of the research groups “Media, Identities and Borders” and “Communication and Development.” Her research interests also include information and communication technologies, & gender, generation and rural communication. Schwartz worked for 15 years in broadcasting as reporter, editor, and chief of journalism.

Kenzo Seto is a postgraduate student at the School of Communication of the UFRJ, researcher at Net Lab and Coordinator of mobilization on the political campaign of the candidate for City Hall of Rio de Janeiro Marcelo Freixo. His research interests include Micro Sociology, Network Theory and the social uses of information and communication technologies and their consequences for contemporary social movements.

Danilo Silva is a graduate student in Social Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and researcher at Fundação Getúlio Vargas. His research interests include micro sociology, social contagion, and network theory.

Ada Cristina Machado da Silveira is Full Professor in the Graduate Program in Communication Studies, Federal University of Santa Maria and CNPq Research Fellow (Brazil). Silveira has an undergraduate degree in Social Communication – Journalism – from the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (1982) and Master's Degree in Rural Extension at UFSM (1992), Periodisme i Ciències de la Comunicació – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1998), Doctorate in Journalism from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2000), and Postdoctoral Studies at the Sorbonne III La Nouvelle (France) and Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (Argentina). Silveira is editor of Animus Scientific Journal and coordinates the research groups “Media, Identities and Borders.” Her most recent books are Asombros identitarios. Representación y virtualización en los medios (EAE/Saarbrüchen, 2015), Midiatização da tragédia de Santa Maria (FACOS-UFSM, 2014), and Conexões (trans)fronteiriças (EdUNILA, 2016).

Heloísa Traiano holds a degree in Social Communication from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and is a journalist for Infoglobo Comunicações. Her research interests include micro sociology, social contagion, and network theory.

Camyla Terra holds a degree in Social Communication from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and is a content producer at Namastê Produções. Her research interests include online activism, feminism, social media, digital marketing, network studies, and social influencers.

Marcelo Dídimo Souza Vieira is Associate Professor of Cinema and Audiovisual Media at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC). He received his Master’s Degree and PhD from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). His research, published in 2010 (O Cangaço no Cinema Brasileiro, Annablume, 297 p.), focuses on the Cangaço in Brazilian cinema. In addition, Marcelo has recently obtained a post-doctoral degree from the Film and Media Studies department at Columbia University, NYC.

Igor Waltz is journalist and PhD Candidate in the Communication and Culture Program of the School of Communication, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He currently holds a scholarship from the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), a public foundation within the Ministry of Education in Brazil. He is also a member of the research group “Media, Audiovisual Journalism and Education” and his research focuses on multimedia journalism; journalistic practices on the Internet; media startups; entrepreneurship and innovation. He explores how media startups represent a new trend of the Brazilian journalism market, guided by the hypothesis that startups could represent a space of greater freedom of experimentation dialogism between producers and news consumers or, alternatively, would be a continuation of the dictates of journalistic practice.