Protests in São Paulo, Brazil. June 17, 2013. Flickr/Rodrigo Vieira. Some rights reserved.Alternative media activism groups are on the rise in Brazil. On 24 May, the group Jornalistas Livres (Free Journalists) was set to officially launch, promising an agenda focused on human rights and a deep coverage of minorities, with an aim to fight the historical media monopoly in the country. Other media activism groups, and a variety of blogs, are increasingly seeking to provoke discussion about social change. Far from being media ghettos, they publish content on open platforms such as Medium and boost their popularity using social media. As alternative outlets grow in number, new questions arise regarding the extent of their political accountability and current interactions with power holders.
New media and social struggles
Protests in São Paulo, Brazil. June 17, 2013. Flickr/Rodrigo Vieira. Some rights reserved.Since the massive protests across Brazil in 2013, alternative producers are slowly managing to improve their reporting skills and professionalise their media practices. For instance Midia Ninja, one of the groups that two years ago rose to prominence for their chaotic iPhone live streaming is today hosted by an Oximity platform, featuring good quality images and articles. The website Postv.org is another source that constantly documents popular gatherings, social movements meetings, and many debates on current issues. Indigenous rights and affordable housing are particularly hot topics. It is by developing or improving their professional journalism skills, deepening their approach to social struggles and approaching them via a more robust and less disruptive dialogue that the independent media is expanding its audience.
In the race and ethnicity arena, for example, the website Geledés argues against the recurrent stereotypes that surround the image of black women in the media, mainly targeting those seen in soap operas, advertisements and cinema. The website offers an intersectional perspective that hosts other related topics, such as affirmative action, and a positive agenda to revive the self-esteem of Afro-Brazilians. When it comes to the coverage of poverty, Viva Favela and Observatório de Favelas are two popular alternative portals aimed at providing fairer reporting from Rio’s poorest communities. The idea is to achieve a much more nuanced view of what happens in those communities, escaping the conventional portrait of graphic violence as seen in both the national and international media.
