2013 ICA - Television, popular culture and identity

2013 ICA London conference
“Television, popular culture and the Latin
American and Brazilian identity”
Dr. Carolina Matos
Government Department
University of Essex

Key points
• Overview of Media and politics in Latin America: globalization,
democracy and identity (I.B. Tauris, 2012)
• Empirical methods and survey with students
• Brazilian culture as hybrid: cultural globalization and the national
identity
• Latin American broadcasting and commercial Brazilian television
• TV Globo and the history of Brazilian commercial TV
• Soap operas and the construction of national identity
• The “public” versus “private” dichotomy
• Audience’s media consumption habits and responses to the public
media
• Public media formats: from TV Cultura to TV Brasil
• Brazilian commercial and public television: facts and figures
• Quotes from interviews

Parts of Media and politics in Latin America
• Frameworks of comparison for public service media
• Public communications and regulation in Latin America
• European public service broadcasting revisited
• Journalism for the public interest: the crisis of civic communications
and journalism in Latin America
• Television, entertainment and the public interest
• Audience perceptions of quality programming and the public media
• Television, popular culture and Latin America and Brazilian identity
• Internet for the public interest
• Political cynicism and the digital divide
• Mediated politics in the 2010 Brazilian elections
• Media democratisation in Latin America: towards a politics for
national development

Four lines of research inquiry in Media and politics
in Latin America (IB Tauris, 2012)
• An evaluation of the historical evolution and the public
broadcasting tradition of countries like the UK and
Brazil;
• The relationship established between the public media
with the state, public sphere and the public interest;
• The debates on what constitutes ‘quality’ programming
and information in both the private and public media;
• An examination of the ‘crisis’ of civic forms of
communication, and how they can still be relevant.

Brazilian culture as hybrid: cultural
globalization and the national identity
• Since its origins, Brazil has been multiracial and has been supported
on the interplay of cultures and on racial miscegenation. It has been
classified by Lauerhass Jr. (2006, 6) as ‘a Creole variant of a
European (Portuguese) culture’. Thus cultural mixing and mestizaje,
which refers to the racial mixture of African, European and
indigenous peoples throughout Latin America, has characterised the
whole formation of the continent’s multiple identities.
• Lesser (1999) further argued how different ethnic groups in Brazil,
such as the Syrians, Lebanese and Japanese, have succeeded in
challenging previous elite notions of Brazilianness, equated with
Europeanness and ‘whiteness’, thus permitting a more fluid identity.
• As Lesser (1999, 5) notes, mesticagem became to be understood as
a joining rather than mixing of identities, thus emphasising ‘the
creation of a multiplicity of hyphenated Brazilians rather than a
single....one.’

Latin American broadcasting has adopted
US model
• TV in many Latin American countries has developed
following the US commercial model
• I.e. Development of Brazilian television by military planners
in the 60’s onwards contributed for the formation of what
Straubhaar (2001; 138) has defined as the “nationalizing
vocation”
• It has also assisted in the creation of a consumer culture
and a wider engagement of Brazilians in the market
economy.
• Television has taken on a central role in political life, in the
country’s democratisation process and in the construction
of various identities.
• It is possible to say that in this sense TV Globo carries some
resemblance with the role played by the BBC in the UK.

Latin American broadcasting and Brazilian
commercial television
• Various studies have dissected the close ties established between TV
Globo in its early years with the dictatorship (i.e. Straubhaar, 2001; Fox,
1997). The military government was seen as having been
interventionist in the media during the dictatorship years, financing
microwave, satellite and other aspects of TV infra-structure, and
favouring in particular TV Globo.
• TV Globo from Brazil is considered one of the most powerful and
dynamic actors in today’s global connections (Waisbord, 1995)
alongside Mexico’s Televisa. Both Globo, with annual revenue of US$
1.9 billion, and its Mexican counterpart, Televisa, with US$ 1.4 billion,
could fall within the range of the ‘Top 25 Media Groups’ of 1997, as
they were ranked by the trade journal Broadcasting and Cable (Higgins
and McClellan, 1997, quoted in Sinclair, 1999, 74).
• TV Globo and Televisa have managed to emerge nonetheless as the
two largest broadcasters located outside of the developed world which
offer global competition to the established Northern players.

Commercial television and national
identity
• Sinclair (1999, 77) has underlined how Globo and Televisa combine both
horizontal and vertical integration and that, in conjunction with the
traditional family style of ownership, they have conformed to the ideal
type of what can be understood as the ‘Latin American’ model of a media
corporation.
• As Voltmer and Schmitt-Beck (2006, 231) asserted, the excessive
commercialisation of the media in Latin America’s new democracies, which
has also been influenced by the heavy entertainment diet provided by
commercial broadcasting, can be seen as having constituted an obstacle in
the process of institution-building and successful democratic consolidation
in the continent (Skidmore, 1993; Waisbord, 1995 in Voltmer and Schmitt-
Beck, 2006).
• Television to start with has occupied a central role in political life, in the
country’s democratization process and in the construction of various
identities.
• The power of the medium of television in setting standards of conduct,
influencing lifestyles, selling products and ideas and shaping behaviours
and identities should not be underestimated. This is one of the reasons for
the initiatives and pressures to strengthen the public media.

TV Globo and the history of Brazilian commercial TV
• As Guedes-Bailey and Jambeiro Barbosa (2008, 50) have pointed
out, it was radio broadcasting, through the success of stations such
as Radio Nacional, the most important radio station in Latin America
for about 15 years, that established crucial patterns for the TV
industry in Brazil.
• This included current characteristics associated to the Brazilian
commercial television industry, such as the pursuit of a mass
audience, the predominance of entertainment over educational or
cultural programming and of private over public ownership, as well
as advertising support over government, public over non-
commercial financing (Guedes-Bailey and Jambeiro Barbosa, 2008;
50).
• As Possebon (2006) affirms, according to the Pesquisa Nacional de
Amostragem de Domicilios of the 2005 IBGE census, 91.4% of
Brazilian homes have television, with the channels TV Globo and SBT
reaching more than 95% of homes.

Brazilian commercial television and
national identity
• The Brazilian military also invested heavily in telecommunication infra-
structure, which was among the fastest sector in the economy. As
Straubhaar (2001) affirms, the military government supported Globo as
a quasi-monopoly until the late 1970s.
• It was only in 1981 that the government issued license packages to
create competitors SBT and TV Manchete (Straubhaar, 2001, 140-143).
From mainly that year onwards, the Brazilian importation of American
programming began to fall. Prime time began to be filled with Brazilian
productions. Nonetheless, the aesthetic of entertainment and the
privileging of American programming had already began to prevail.
• Commercial television in Brazil has had a major role in selling not only
cultural goods and ideas, but in shaping lifestyle and consumerism
habits and behaviours of large sectors of the population independently
of class, ethnicity and race.
• It has also played a significant role in defining national politics and in
obstructing, as well as contradictorily assisting, in the construction of
the democratization project following the end of the dictatorship in
1985 (Matos, 2008; Bucci, 2001; Conti, 1999).

Television and national identity in
Brazil
• According to the study “Os Donos da Midia” (Owners of the Media)
done by the Instituto de Estudos e Pesquisa em Comunicacao
(Epcom) of 2002, Globo Organisations has 32 concessions of
commercial TV, 11 in Sao Paulo and 113 affiliated stations in the
country. It obtains 54% of audience numbers and of national
advertising resources (R$ 1.59 billion in 2002), whereas SBT has 10
stations and 100 affiliates.
• Former director of journalism of TV Cultura, Gabriel Priolli, president
of the Brazilian Association of University TVs (ABTV), has argued
that Brazilian commercial television has played a powerful role in
the diffusion of the national Brazilian sentiment, largely identified
with the white Rio and Sao Paulo elites.
• TV Globo’s telenovelas have undoubtedly also had a large role in the
building of this unifying national identity. Many have argued that a
highly commercial entertainment and advertising diet has
encouraged the development of a particular individualistic and
consumerist personality.

TV Globo and its role in democratization
• TV Globo has the largest percentage of national content production in
comparison to its competitors, including an average of 70% and 100%
during peak time (Possebon, 2007, 289).
• Due to TV Globo’s relationship with the dictatorship regime in its early
years, there has been controversies in regards to the role that the
station’s soap-operas have played in providing avenues for political
liberalisation during the 1980s (Porto, 2008; Straubhaar, 1988).
• Straubhaar (1988) has argued that Brazilian soaps contributed to delay
support for political opening, whereas Porto (2008, 10) points to the
ambiguity of the telenovelas’ texts.
• Porto (2008) correctly believes that there is (and has been) a role for
television fiction in the process of nation-building
• Porto (2008) argues that they helped to give meaning and to shape the
political process by incorporating new demands coming from a more
organised civil society. He underlined the work of authors such as Dias
Gomes, and soaps like O Bem Amado (The Well Loved, 1973) and Roque
Santeiro (1985), as being emblematic of such actions.

TV Globo and its role in democratization
• TV Globo’s wider commitment to representing balanced political debate
has grown as a response to the critiques that it received in relation to its
coverage of the key presidential elections of the post-dictatorship phase
(i.e. Bucci, 2000; Skidmore, 1993; Fox, 1997).
• From the mid-1990s onwards, it started to be pressured to improve its
journalism and balance criteria, at the same time that it began to suffer
from competition posed by other television stations, cable TV and the
Internet.
• Many sectors of the Brazilian audience continue to rate soaps highly,
including them among their favourite programming, alongside Jornal
Nacional. TV Globo on the other hand has also tried to respond better to
criticism, and has began also to market itself as producing culture.
• This is evident in its more recent slogan, “Cultura, a gente se ve por ai”
(Culture: we will see each other around).
• With an average of 40 points daily nonetheless, Globo’s Jornal Nacional
is still the highest audience rating in Brazilian TV (Meditsch, Moreira and
Machado, 2005).

TV Globo’s popular programmes and the
emergence of a new competitive market
• TV Globo’s popularity has however been in decline. In April 2010, the
station registered the lowest average audience rating in a decade, of 16.8
points per day. Ibope also detected a decline of interest in open
television in general, attributing this to various reasons including the
type of programming, growth of the Internet, access to DVDs as well as
competition from other leisure activities.
• Although commercial television is still the main source of information
for most of the population, many journalists, academics, civil society
players and others from the cultural elites have become highly
dissatisfied with it since the mid-1990s.
• The current contemporary reality is more grounded on the need to serve
the country’s multiple public spheres and identities, which is something
that both “public” television as well as commercial television is slowly
beginning to do more
• The opposition between public and commercial media is grounded, as
Livingstone and Lunt (1994, 22- 23) stress, on elitist and participatory
forms of democracy. According to the authors, it wrongly equates
commercialization with an emancipatory rhetoric and the illusion of
involvement. Neither model permits the full realization of a critical
public sphere.

The ‘private’ versus ‘public’ dichotomy in
broadcasting
Private Public
Right/Conservative/Centre/Left – the
consumer
Centre/Left/Liberal/some conservatives -
citizen
‘Objective’ and informational journalism ‘Objective’/’public’/’serious’ journalism
Talk shows/sit-coms/reality TV –
American programming, some content
from other countries
Realism in films/documentaries/reality
TV – ‘arty’ and European programming,
some US material
Advertising/aesthetic of consumerism –
self/intimacy/the private sphere (i.e. Sci-
fi, horror)
‘Quality’ aesthetic/Challenging material
- collective/the public sphere
Dreamy/fantasy/’escapism’ texts –
occasional ‘serious’ material
Historical material/in depth analyses –
some entertainment (i.e. Soaps, drama,
sci-fi, horror).

Audience’s media consumption habits and responses to
the public media
• Various sectors of the audiences in Brazil do envision a more
robust role for public television stations like TV Cultura and TV
Brasil in nation-building, functioning as a counter-weight to the
market and posing quality and positive competition to commercial
stations like TV Globo.
• The UFRJ online survey showed how most students claimed that
they watched television on a daily basis (76 respondents or 51%)
or on average 3 to 4 times a week (17% to 6% respectively).
• The online questionnaire was applied at the Journalism Department
of UFRJ and was answered by 149 students from various socio-
economic backgrounds. The questionnaire was put online during
the holiday and initial start of term period, from mid-July to the
beginning of September 2010.
• Practically all respondents are university students or young
journalists between 18 and 25 years of age (92% of 149), are
members of the low, middle and upper classes of Brazilian society
and live in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Audience’s media consumption habits and
responses to the public media
• A dominant pattern that emerged from the answers was that the
penetration of public television is still very small, given the little
amount of attention that it receives from the respondents, who
mainly watch Globo TV and cable and satellite television. Although
there is still lack of knowledge and understanding of the purposes of
the public media, a significant 71% are defenders of it and recognise
its importance.
• Among other reasons stated for watching television included to be
‘up to date with information’ (12% or 18); ‘professional reasons’
(10% or 15) as well as ‘to know about the situation of the country’
(1%).
• Most respondents revealed that their preferred programming
consisted of news, soap operas, films and series, both national and
American. Asked about their preferred television genre, most chose
TV Series (56 respondents or 38%) and the general option, Arts and
Entertainment (43 or 29%), with smaller numbers for Documentaries
(12 or 8%), Soap-opera (9 or 6%) and Comedy (5 or 3%).

Audience’s consumption of ‘private’ and ‘public’
media
• The option ‘soap opera’ did not score highly as one would think at first.
This can be largely due to the fact that TV Globo’s audience viewing is in
decline due to the competition from other channels, the Internet and
also the saturation of some of its programmes with especially more
demanding viewers. It also might be the case that many in fact do watch
soaps, but given other options of entertainment programming, they
chose series and documentaries.
• The results showed how most like both entertainment and news and
documentaries, with 52% (or 77) saying that they liked both. The
balance is tipped slightly more towards entertainment, which received
32% (or 48), whereas news got 13% (or 20).
• Commercial television appeared as the main source of information for
87% (129 respondents). Only 13% claimed that it was not their prime
source. Most students also like to read newspapers (104 or 70%) and
online news sites (129 or 87%), with only 11 respondents, or 7%, saying
that they also obtain their information from both the public and
commercial media. In terms of which television station they watch, and
if they prefer public to commercial TV, most respondents said that they
watched TV Globo (97 respondents or 65%) and cable and satellite (99
or 66%).

Audience’s consumption of ‘private’ and
‘public’ media
• Only 3% (4) chose the public media option and a slightly higher
number opted for the Brazilian public station options, TV Brasil (8 or
5%) and TV Cultura (8 or 5%). These received similar percentages to
the small open commercial television stations, TV Record (7 or 5%)
and Rede TV! (4 or 3%). Channels Bandeirantes and SBT appeared in
a middle position, with 25 or 17% for the former and 18 or 18% for
the latter.
• The responses for favourite TV programmes were however quite
varied. A popular TV choice was TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional (38 or
25%). The option of the 8 o’clock soap opera appeared with 13%
(20), although in the previous question concerning television genres,
only 6% chose soaps. Forty-seven per cent (47%) chose other
programmes which were not included in the list.
• Among the preferred programmes freely listed by the respondents
were films, popular national programmes or American series.

Key trends in audience viewing and
consumption of Brazilian media
• The UFRJ survey also highlighted how audiences give importance to
quality programming. In regards to the question on what attracted
their attention to TV, the predominant answer was ‘the quality of a
programme’ (58% or 86) and in second place was ‘information’ (22%
or 33).
• Such answers endorse the fact that television, be it in the UK or in
Brazil, is expected by viewers to be both entertaining and
informative, whilst at the same time also offering quality
programming.
• In regards to issues concerning the ‘quality’ of television, many
showed a similar understanding to the general outline discussed
above. Most chose the options ‘the script and the in depth
information provided’ (53%, or 79) as well as the ‘creativity and
originality’ of the programme (27% or 40). The professionalism of
the journalists and actors, and the type of language used, received
8% , or 12, and 7%, or 10 answers, respectively.

Key trends in audience viewing and
consumption of Brazilian media
• Most also recognised the importance of the role of the public
media (71%). Although a majority of the respondents of the survey
did show a lack of interest in watching the public television stations,
a significant 71% of 149 people defended its necessity.
• Another 26% however preferred the option ‘it depends.’ This seems
to signal to the fact that many do in fact not understand what the
public media is actually for, and would like to have more
information about it.
• This interpretation is confirmed by the answers in another question
asked afterwards, which is ‘why’ are you in favour of it. Here the
main option selected was ‘I would like to know more about it’ in
order to make a better judgement (33% or 49). Most do assign a
role for the public media, seeing it as being a compliment to the
commercial media (38%, or 57) and/or a correction of market failure
(20% or 30).
• Contradicting what one would at first expect, not everyone
automatically saw the public media as necessarily more capable of
being impartial. There was little consensus here.

What role should be reserved for the public
media?
• The responses varied significantly in this category from the ones
who choose newspapers, to those who opted for the foreign media,
the Internet and the public media. Forty-eight (48%) saw the
Internet as having the capacity of being more impartial, with the
public media coming in second with 15%. Newspapers received 6%
(9), commercial TV 5% (8) and foreign media 2% (3). Many chose to
include comments in the space provided.
• Another wrote that it is ‘not the media vehicle, but the integrity of
the journalist’; whilst another affirmed that the public media only
‘engages in spectacles.’ Another student claimed that television and
radio as mediums had the potential of being more impartial due to
their wider reach.
• The respondents were divided in the question concerning the
functions and purposes of the public media. Most opted for answers
which can be interpreted as seeing civic communications as having a
role in democratization.

Public media formats: from TV Cultura to TV
Brasil
• TV Brasil, which is part of the public media platform Empresa
Brasileira de Comunicacao (EBC), was launched by the Ministry of
Culture and the Brazilian government in December 2008. The total
funding for EBC includes money from the federal government as
well as donations.
• According to the former minister of Communications, Franklin
Martins, the new channel received a budget of R$ 350 million. The
main programming is provided by Rio’s educational television (TVE),
with two programmes from Radiobras.
• The current Brazilian TV market, which is funded with public
resources, includes the television stations TV Cultura, which has an
annual budget of R$ 160 million; Radiobras, with R$ 100 million;
TVE, which had R$ 35 million in 2004, and which has been
incorporated into TV Brasil. There are also other resources which go
to the television stations of the Legislative federal, state and
municipal powers, plus TV Justica and university channels
(Possebon, 2007, 290), all of which have a low audience rating.

TV Brasil: facts and figures
• According to Abepec (Brazilian Association of Public Educational and
Cultural Stations), with less than two years of its existence, TV Brasil is
watched regularly by 10% of the population and has 80% of the
audiences’ approval.
• Twenty-two per cent considered the programming excellent, and 58%
classified it as ‘good’. The research was conducted during the 18th
and
22nd
of August 2009, with 5.192 people being interviewed throughout
Brazil. One of the most popular programmes of the station is Nova
Africa (New Africa).
• Perhaps where the public media is differing most also from the
commercial stations is in regards to the production of distinctive
cultural and historical programmes, like TV Brasil’s Almanaque Brasil,
Sustentaculos and Brasilianas.org.
• The journalism staff at TV Brasil has been built around largely
professional norms. It includes names of professionals who worked for
the mainstream media, such as the current president of EBC, Tereza
Cruvinel, former O Globo columnist. Among the most popular shows
broadcast by TV Brasil is the cultural De La Para Ca, a programme of
interviews presented by former Globo columnist Ancelmo Gois.

Brazilian television, politics and the media
•

Quotes from interviews
• According to Gabriel Priolli, former director of journalism for
TV Cultura, the notion of a ‘public television’ in Brazil is still far
away from being fully implemented:
• “The government of Sao Paulo was worried about expanding
audience numbers at TV Cultura. There is an elitist view of
culture….. and there was also a sense of having to satisfy the
government for the liberation of funds. There are different
visions in regards to the public media, in Sao Paulo, in relation
to the federal view. TV Brasil has a wider preoccupation with
independent programming, but TV Cultura has gone in the
opposite direction….The fact of the matter is that the public
media does not exist in Brazil. Public TV is more an idea…What
exists in Brazil is educational TVs controlled by the state”

Quotes from interviews
• Former TV Globo correspondent and professor, Antonio Brasil,
stated that:
“All the channels are stations dressed up as ‘public’ media
stations. We cannot even guarantee education and quality public
health. This ‘public media’ is nothing more than a vanity affair which
consumes millions of reais and guarantees good jobs for the friend
of the friend. The public ignores its programming and continues to
watch soap operas and football. Television should not be a priority
of government. The interests of governments dictate their destiny
and the public do not show interest in maintaining these mediums.
Thus we adore to speak well and bad of the public media, but then
to watch the commercial one...There is no ‘real’ interest of the
government….of confronting Globo.......The BBC for instance is
excellent for the British, but the model does not apply to Latin
America. The governments of the region would not be prepared to
live with the power and independence of the BBC......”

Some conclusions
• The UFRJ student survey underlined for instance how most still have
a habit of watching commercial television, TV Globo and satellite
and cable TV, but nonetheless do have a genuine interest in the
public media and see it as an important tool for democracy and for
raising public debate and quality standards.
• Some of the key challenges facing public television stations like TV
Cultura and TV Brasil in Brazil concern their lack of full editorial
independence from politicians and from government, a
consequence of the impact of political influence which exists at both
stations, as well as the tradition that exists in Brazil of
understanding “public” media more as a vehicle of the state.
• The breaking of the historical tradition of promiscuous relationships
established between the public media and specific political groups
in Brazil, as well as the investments in innovative programming
capable of creating a medium which offers positive quality
competition to the market media, are some of the challenges in the
project of strengthening the public media and skewing it to the
public interest.

Selected bibliography
• Barbosa, Livia Neves de H. (1995) “The Brazilian Jeitinho: an Exercise in
National Identity” in Hess, David J. and DaMatta, Roberto (eds.) The
Brazilian Puzzle, New York: Columbia University Press, 35- 47
• Canizalez, Andres and Lugo-Ocando, Jairo (2008) “Beyond National Media
Systems: A Media for Latin America and the Struggle for Integration” in
The Media in Latin America, Berkshire: Open University Press, 209-223
• Daniel, G. Reginald (2006) “Eurocentrism – Racial Formation and the
Master Racial Project” in Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United
States: Converging Paths?, University Park: Pennsylnavia State University
Press, 9-51
• Matos, C (2012) Media and politics in Latin America: globalization,
democracy and identity, London: I.B Tauris
• Porto, Mauro (2008) “Telenovelas and National Identity in Brazil”, paper
presented at the IX International Congress of BRASA, New Orleans, US,
March 27-29
• Straubhaar, Joseph (2007) “Making Sense of World Television:
Hybridization or Multilayered Cultural Identities” in World Television:
From Global to Local, London: Sage, 221-257

Thank you!
• Dr. Carolina Matos
• Government Department
• University of Essex
• E-mail: cmatos@essex.ac.uk
• http://essex.academia.edu/CarolinaMatos

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