Brazilian Blogosfera Progressista:
Digital Vanguards in Dark Times
Eleonora de Magalhães Carvalho*, Afonso de Albuquerque** and Marcelo Alves
dos Santos Jr***
*Pinheiro Guimarães College, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, eleonoramaga@gmail.com
, https://eleonoramagalhaes.wixsite.com/website
**Fluminense Federal University, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, afonsoalbuquerque@id.uff.br
***Fluminense Federal University, Brazil, marcelo_alves@id.uff.br, www.marceloalves.org
Abstract: This article explores the Brazilian Blogosfera Progressista (Progressive Blogosphere, hereafter BP), a leftist political communication initiative aiming to conciliate an institutionalized model of organization with a networked model of action. Despite the disparity of resources existing between them, BP proved able to counter effectively the mainstream media’s political framings, thanks to wise networking strategies, which explored the communicative opportunities offered by social media. The Centro de Estudos de Mídia Alternativa Barão de Itararé – Barão de Itararé Alternative Media Studies Center – is an essential piece in this schema, as it works as a coordinating agency for BP members and trains new participants. Our article intends to discuss this and other characteristics of BP as a group, and the challenges it faces at the present, after the rise of Jair Bolsonaro to Brazil’s presidency.
Keywords: Blogosfera Progressista, counter-hegemonic media, activism, Brazil, Vanguard, Networked Organization
1.
Introduction
In
June
2013, massive demonstrations – known as the Jornadas de Junho
(June
Journeys) – took place in several cities in Brazil. The immediate
factor
triggering protests in the city of São Paulo was the rise of the bus
fares,
from 3,00 to 3,20 reais. Other demonstrations followed and,
soon, they
“were not only about the 20 centavos”; they also demanded better
social
services (as health and education), complained against the realization
of the
FIFA World Cup in 2014, and the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, in 2016,
and
denounced government corruption, among numerous other topics. They
were hailed
as a vibrant example of a new model of politics, one allowing the
crowds to
demonstrate (and even impose) their will to the political elites.
Scholars soon
identified parallels between these demonstrations and others occurring
around
the world, as the Occupy movement in the United States and Europe, the
Indignados movement in Spain, the Arab Spring, among many others (Castells
2012). These movements were presented as a
radically new type of political mobilization, capable of uniting
different
political agendas, a model that Bennett and Segerberg (2013)
named “connective action”, which was
made possible by the emergence of social media.
In retrospect, it seems clear that the Jornadas
de
Junho backfired. When the demonstrations began, the Brazilian
presidency
was already in the hands of PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or
Workers’
Party) for ten years. During this period, consistent social policies
led
millions of people to ascent from poverty to a middle-class status,
numerous
public universities were created, and affirmative policies allowed for
the
first time a massive number of non-white people to have access to
them.
Additionally, the economy looked solid, and Brazil enjoyed a
considerable
prestige in the international arena. President Luis Inácio Lula da
Silva ended
his two-terms period (2003-2006 and 2007-2010) with a record high
popularity,
and just before Jornadas de Junho, his successor Dilma
Rousseff was very
popular too (Ballestrin 2019; Singer
2019). Ironically, most leaders of the first
demonstration were members of PT, aiming to push the party more to the
left.
However, as they disdained the very idea of a political vanguard, they
were
incapable to coordinate actions in order to obtain practical results
from the
protests. Even worse, right-wing militants infiltrated the
manifestations and,
little by little, proved able to hijack their agenda, by changing the
focus to
corruption, and then to PT’s corruption.
Additional manifestations occurred in 2014 –
this time against the FIFA World Cup – and contributed to weaken PT
and
president Rousseff, who, despite this, managed to be re-elected.
Protests
asking Rousseff to be impeached began just after she was sworn in, in
January
2015 – this time carried out by right wing groups and supported by the
mainstream media, with basis on the allegation that PT was a “criminal
organization”. Under a strong attack both from the Judiciary – the Lava
Jato
Operation, led by Judge Sergio Moro, turned from a general
anti-corruption
crusade into an anti-PT movement – and the mainstream press, Rousseff
was
impeached in 2016, in a parliamentary coup. In 2018, Lula was arrested
after a
Kafkaesque judicial process, and prevented in disputing the
presidential
elections. Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right politician, won the elections
and invited
Moro to be his Minister of Justice (Feres
Junior
and Gagliardi 2019). In a short term, neoliberal policies
reverted
the previous social conquests, political repression peaked, the
universities
went under attack. Interestingly, the bus fare in São Paulo is now
4,30 reais.
The disdain regarding the importance of the
political vanguards proved to be a core fragility for the Jornadas
de Junho
movement. Yet, despite the massive attention it received, this is not
the only
existing model that explores the potentialities of digital media for
political
mobilization. This article explores one of these alternatives: The
Brazilian Blogosfera
Progressista (Progressive Blogosphere, hereafter BP) a leftist
political
communication initiative aiming to conciliate an institutionalised
model of
organisation with a networked model of action. Despite the disparity
of
resources existing between them, BP proved able to counter effectively
the
mainstream media’s political framings, thanks to wise networking
strategies,
which explored the communicative opportunities offered by social
media. The Centro
de Estudos de Mídia Alternativa Barão de Itararé – Barão de
Itararé
Alternative Media Studies Center – is an essential piece in this
schema, as it
works as a coordinating agency for BP members and trains new
participants.
Contrary to that suggested by Bennett, Segerberg and Castells, we
contend that
there is still room for collective models of activism and old
principles
characteristic from socialist activism – as the vanguard model of
organization
– remain valid nowadays, in a growingly digital environment.
The article is organized as follows. It
starts with the origins of BP in light of two historical antecedents:
1) the
influential role that communist professionals exerted in the process
of
modernization of the Brazilian journalism, in the 1950-70s; 2) the
tradition of
independent journalism, which developed in Brazil during the military
dictatorship era, in the 1960-70s. The third section discusses the
organisational
characteristics of BP. It proposes a typology of its members,
describes its
networking structure and the vanguard role that Barão de Itararé
Center
performs on it. The fourth section focuses on BP modus operandi and
its impact
as a counter-hegemonic media. The fifth and sixth sections discuss,
respectively,
the challenges faced by BP after the 2016 coup, and the surprising
opportunities that the chaotic Bolsonaro government present to the
rebuilding
of the Brazilian left. The final section looks for general lessons
from the BP.
It is argued that the logic of collective action remains as necessary
as ever
for social movements, and that models of organization originated from
socialism
– as the organizing role of political vanguards – are still necessary
in order
to allow them to establish and pursue coherent strategies and courses
of
action.
2. Historical Context
The origins of BP in Brazil can be
traced to
2006, when political activists and journalists joined efforts in
search of a
counter-hegemonic alternative to the conservative mainstream media,
one of the
most concentrated in the world (Moreira 2016).
After
the return of democracy, in 1985, Brazilian mainstream media claimed
to exert a
quasi-official branch of the government, whose attributions included
to act as
a moderating power with respect to the three official branches of
government,
intervening in political issues “for the sake of democracy” (Albuquerque
2005; Guimarães
and Amaral 1988). Concretely, this implied in systematically
taking sides
against the political left in general and PT in particular (Azevedo
2017; Feres
Junior and Gagliardi 2019)), as well as, championing neoliberal
policies as
corresponding to the “national interest”.
After Lula was sworn in as Brazil’s
president, in 2003, the mainstream media lost much of their ability to
influence
the government’s political agenda, but still remained very powerful.
In the
following years, they used this power as a means to destabilize Lula
and PT, by
associating them to negative values as populism, corruption, and
authoritarianism
(Albuquerque 2019), but this was not
enough to
avoid Lula’s reelection in 2006, and from making Dilma Rousseff his
successor
in 2010 – she was also reelected in 2014. As this happened, they
engaged in a
campaign aiming to defeat PT by any means (Damgaard
2018; Feres Junior and
Sassara 2018).
This finally worked, as President Rousseff was deposed in 2016, and
Lula was
put in jail in 2018 – in both cases after very controversial political
and
judicial processes.
It was against this backdrop that
BP emerged
as a counter-hegemonic medium. Still, other factors must be taken in
account to
understand BP’s development in Brazil. A first aspect that influenced
the
progressive blogosphere in Brazil refers to particular characteristics
of the
development of Brazilian journalism and how it impacted on the
journalists’
professional culture. Two elements may be emphasized here: 1) the
considerable
influence that communists exerted in the Brazilian journalistic
culture, in the
decades following the end of World War II; 2) the rise of an
independent
journalism movement in the 1960-70s.
In the 1950-70s, there were many communists in Brazilian newspapers – even in conservative ones – some of them in editorial positions. The owners of these newspapers were aware of the presence of communists, but they did not matter – O Globo’s owner, Roberto Marinho used to refer to them as “my communists” (Albuquerque and Roxo da Silva 2009). This happened for different reasons. First, most Brazilian communists had a middle-class background, rather than a working-class one, and communism had a considerable appeal for a large part of Brazilian intelligentsia. This made them particularly attractive in a time when journalism experienced a modernisation process and needed a skilled workforce. Additionally, the Leninist views about the importance of the newspapers as an instrument for political organization contributed to make journalism more attractive for Brazilian communists (Serra 2007). Yet, the presence of communists in the newsrooms has come with a price: They were expected to not engage in subversive activities and be acquiescent to the newspapers’ editorial lines. In fact, the newspapers’ owners considered them as being a particularly disciplined group of journalists. In exchange, they enjoyed some autonomy in everyday routines in the newsroom, which allowed them to hire fellow communists. Paradoxically, the Communist Party’s structure worked as a factor reinforcing the discipline in the newsrooms. This non-orthodox pact made sense because Brazilian communists had a reformist, rather than revolutionary approach to politics, and were disposed to make alliances with sectors of the bourgeoisie (Albuquerque and Roxo da Silva 2009).
This arrangement endured until the
end of
the 1970s. At that time, in a context of growing competition,
newspapers looked
for a more professional management system, in which the communists
were not
necessary anymore (Albuquerque
and Roxo da
Silva 2009). Added to this, the Communist Party was not as
influential as
before, as the Workers’ Party (PT) emerged as a political force
disputing its
hegemony in the Brazilian left. Different from the communists, petista
journalists viewed the newspapers’ owners as adversaries, as they
imposed an
“economic censorship” that prevented them to make “real journalism” (Smith 1997). The journalists’ unions became
particularly
active in voicing an anti-capitalistic view of journalism, by
demanding social
control of the news (Roxo 2013).
A parallel development refers to
the rise of
a model of independent journalism in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s (Kucinski 1991). At that time, Brazil
experienced a
brutal military dictatorship, which systematically repressed the
freedom of
expression and brutalised journalists (Kushnir
2004;
Smith 1997). However, this did not prevent
the
mainstream media outlets to unambiguously support and being generously
rewarded
for this (Guimarães and Amaral 1988;
Kushnir 2004). In such circumstances, many
journalists
came to believe that the only possible manner to exert their
profession was
outside the mainstream media, as independent journalists. Numerous
independent
outlets were created, but most of them were short-lived, as they fell
victim to
political repression and economic difficulties (Kucinski
1991). However, the independent journalism ideal remained
influential in
Brazilian journalism’s culture, and together with the anti-capitalism
agenda,
it served as an inspiring source to the BP.
A second factor that influenced the
progressive blogosphere in Brazil has to do with political changes
associated with
the rise of the political left to the presidency, not only in Brazil
but also
in other South American countries, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,
Ecuador,
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Despite being very different
in their
political styles – some more populists, others more institutionalised;
some
closer to socialism and others to social democracy (Cameron
2009; Castañeda 2006; Lupien
2013) – those countries proved able to forge a regional alliance
and a
common Latin American identity. The Latin American elites reacted to
it, by
presenting leftist governments as putting democracy in jeopardy,
sometimes
picturing them as a part of a broader “Bolivariana” or “Chavista”
conspiracy.
Accordingly, they claimed for themselves the performance of the role
of the political
opposition that political parties were not able to exert (Farah
2010). As the political engagement of Brazilian media became
more and more
explicit, professional journalists felt compelled to take side against
them
and, in order to do this, they joined political activists to form BP.
The third and last prerequisite of BP is technological in nature: The new wave of independent journalism and political activism would not be possible in the absence of a media infrastructure allowing low-cost communication between activists, journalists and their public. The rise of blogs, in the early-2000s, and social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provided them with the means to present an alternative to the mainstream media – although, as Bailey and Marques (2012) observe, in many cases, originally independent journalistic blogs were absorbed by the mainstream media. Furthermore, the networking character of these media allowed activists and journalists to forge strategies permitting them to reach a much larger public that would be possible if they acted in an isolated manner.
3. Structure
BP is a complex organisation with
porous
borders. It includes agents with different (although essentially
compatible)
agendas, institutional profiles, and models of action. This section
explores BP
as a particular type of media ecosystem (Magalhães
and
Albuquerque 2017; Rovai 2018),
describes the
characteristics of the actors taking part in it, the types of
relationship they
have established with each other, and the role performed by Barão
de Itararé
as a vanguard agent, which provided BP with a considerable degree of
organicity.
3.1. Typology of BP Members
The members of BP differ in their
nature,
status and social capital type (De
Magalhães
Carvalho 2018). As its origin coincides with the rise of the
personal blogs
(Aldé, Escobar and Chagas 2007; Quadros,
Rosa and Vieira 2005), BP was initially a
confederation of individuals but, since then, it has evolved and
included
other, more institutional types of agents. Individuals form the most
important
aspect of the BP ecosystem. Notable cases include Rodrigo
Vianna’s O
Escrevinhador and Conceição Oliveira’ Maria Frô. In some cases, individual blogs
evolved to
become small journalistic outlets, as Paulo Henrique Amorim’s Conversa
Afiada, which is run by four journalists. There are also more
consolidated
journalistic groups, such as Brasil 247, Opera Mundi,
Revista
Forum, all originally online, and the online version of the
magazine Carta
Capital, and other media related to political parties, such as
the web portal
Vermelho that is associated with the Communist Party of Brazil
(Partido
Comunista do Brasil, hereafter PCdoB), and PT na Câmara that is
associated with
PT (De Magalhães Carvalho 2018;
Magalhães and Albuquerque 2017).
A BP membership is associated with
different
types of sources of authority. The three most relevant types are
journalists, activists
and politicians. Journalists have the more prestigious position in the
BP
ecosystem. Many of them had distinguished careers in the mainstream
media
before joining BP, and some were able to conciliate both activities (Guazina 2013). Conversa Afiada’s
Paulo Henrique
Amorim worked for a long time as the anchor of Globo Network’s
newscast Jornal
Nacional and Jornal da Globo and remained as the anchor
of the
Record Network until 2019, when he was fired. He eventually passed
away a few
weeks thereafter. Viomundo’s Luis Carlos Azenha worked as a
television
reporter on the SBT, Manchete and Globo
networks. Luis Nassif,
from GGN
Jornal, was a member of the Editorial Council of the newspaper Folha
de
S. Paulo. Paulo Nogueira, the editor of Diário do Centro do
Mundo held
editorial and foreign correspondent positions in Veja, Exame
and Época.
Socialista Morena’s Cynara Menezes formerly worked for Folha
de S.
Paulo and the Veja magazine. The founding members of BP
began their
blogs as personal projects, parallel to their professional careers,
according
to the spirit of “personal blogs” of the mid-2000s, and posteriorly
professionalised
them (Guazina 2013). They sustain an
ambiguous
relationship with the mainstream media as, on the one hand, they
contend they
don’t do real journalism, as they are compromised with economic and
political
interests but, on the other hand, their past work in these very media
paradoxically provides them with journalistic authority (Zelizer
1992) which lends credibility to BP as a whole.
Different from journalists, whose
foremost
interest in BP lies on exerting journalism far from the imposed
constrains by
the mainstream media, activists perceive it as a means for promoting a
political
cause. Activists are much more diversified in their authorizing
sources and
styles than journalists. Conceição Oliveira, the head of the blog Maria
Frô
describes herself as a historian and educator who fights for racial
and gender
equality. Created as a strictly personal blog, Maria Frô
subsequently
acquired a more political tone. It later was hosted in the web portal
Forum.
Oliveira also co-operates with other BP media. Another prominent
member of BP
is Eduardo Guimarães, a lawyer who had no previous political
experience before
founding his Blog da Cidadania.
The boundaries between the
identities of
journalists and activists are considerably porous, however, as BP
descends from
the independent journalism movement. The case of Altamiro Borges –
responsible
for Blog do Miro, and one of the most important articulators of Barão
de
Itararé – is a case in point in this respect. He graduated in
journalism studies
in 1979, the same year he became affiliated to PCdoB. Since since then
he has engaged
in the midialivrismo (free media) movement and has been allied
with other
social movements such as the MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores
Rurais Sem
Terra, Movement of Landless Rural Workers). The blending between
the
journalist and activist identities is particularly notable in some of
the more
institutionalised actors of B such as Revista Forum, Carta
Maior
and Brasil de Fato, as their origins are related to the World
Social
Forum, an anti-neoliberal globalisation event whose first edition
occurred in
the city of Porto Alegre in 2001 (De
Magalhães
Carvalho 2018).
The third category, politicians,
refers to
individuals who had a political career before joining BP, political
parties and
other political organisations. Two parties – PCdoB and PT – have been
particularly active in BP. PCdoB was a junior partner during the
PT-led
governments, but in BP their asymmetrical relationship was somewhat
inverted.
PCdoB benefited from its large experience in communication in
accordance with
Leninist principles. When it split from PCB (Partido Comunista
Brasileiro/Brazilian
Communist Party) in 1962, PCdoB inherited the newspaper Causa
Operária (Worker’s
Cause), which was deemed illegal during the military dictatorship
(1964-1985).
In 2002, PCdoB was a pioneer in using digital media as a resource for
party
communication, as it created the web portal Vermelho (Red). Causa
Operária and Vermelho adopted totally different
communicative
logics: While Causa Operária targeted hardcore activists, in a
time when
they faced intense political repression, and used a very politicised
language, Vermelho
looked to reach a broader public through a more informative approach,
which is
expressed by the slogan “the well-informed left” (Mourão
2009).
3.2. BP’s Networking Structure
More than a group of individuals, BP is also
defined by the concrete relations the individuals involved in it
establish with
each other. Working as a pack, BP is a force to be respected. It works
through
a verticalised network structure, which is built through reciprocal
quoting,
sharing of posts, linking to other members’ pages and “official”
policies of
partnership, which are indicated in the blogs’ blogrolls. This allows
the
messages originally posted by particular members to reach a much
larger
audience than it would be possible otherwise. A network schema of the
relations
between BP members’ Facebook pages can be found in Figure 1.
Figure 1: BP Network in Facebook
This logic results in a hierarchical model of
organisation. The central position in the system is occupied by
prestigious
journalists and activists, in most cases belonging to BP’s first
generation (Magalhães and
Albuquerque 2017). Their
prestige allows their posts to be shared with a wider range of people
than
others. The second level refers to other actors identifying themselves
as
members of BP. Many of them joined BP later and do not use blogs but
have social
media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platorms that
they use
to echo BP’s content.
The third level refers to agents that do not belong formally to the BP universe, but establish some tactical alliances with it, motivated by common interests or sensibilities. A particularly relevant case refers to other leftist activist media organisations that differ from BP in their political and organisational approaches. Two particularly relevant cases refer to Mídia Ninja and Intercept Brasil. Mídia Ninja – Ninja is an acronym for Narrativas Independentes, Jornalismo e Ação (Independent Narratives Journalism and Action) – is a collaborative journalism project providing live coverage of protests through the use of cell phones, which gained momentum during the Jornadas de Junho in 201 when activists in their coverage provided live testimonies of police brutality (Cammaerts and Jiménez-Martinez 2014; Penteado and Souza 2016). Initially, BP actors were mostly suspicious both of Mídia Ninja’s unmediated journalistic methods and its political agenda, as they were sceptical or even critical of the Jornadas de Junho’s political intentions and impact. However, BP and Mídia Ninja established closer ties after 2016, when they allied in defence of President Rousseff’s government, which faced a process of impeachment. In the same line, The Intercept Brasil, the Brazilian branch of The Intercept – which played a central role in the Wikileaks case – gained a lot of prestige among BP members in consequence of the Vaza Jato initiative, which presented disturbing evidences about the political motivations behind Lava Jato and pointed to the operation as an effort for toppling President Rousseff and putting former President Lula in jail.
3.3. The Role of Barão de Itararé as BP’s Political Vanguard
Online networking practices have a
great
importance in forging BP as a coherent political media group, but
offline
models of organisation are also essential. Barão de Itararé
has a
crucial role in institutionalising BP. The origins of Barão de
Itararé
can be traced to the Confecom (Conferência Nacional de
Comunicação
or National Conference of Communication), in 2009 (Rovai
2018). At that time, the Brazilian government called
representatives of
diverse civil-society organisations to discuss the model of media
communication
existing in Brazil, and proposing modifications to it (Intervozes
2010). A similar approach was adopted later with respect to the
Marco
Civil da Internet in 2014. Many proposals resulted from the
meeting, as for
instance: the acknowledgement of communication as a social right; the
creation
of a National Communications Council, which would be responsible for
establishing and monitoring public policies on the sector; public
funding
policies for the media and measures intending to avoid property
concentration.
These proposals alarmed the mainstream media organisations, which
accused Confecom
of trying to establish a potentially authoritarian model of control of
communications. Contrary to what was happening with the Marco
Civil, the
measures proposed by Confecom were not approved by the Brazilian
National
Congress. Nevertheless, Confecom was the seed of BP, thanks to the Barão
de
Itararé’s efforts.
The Barão of Itararé Center
was
created in May 2010 with the purpose of “creating something capable of
reuniting social movement activists with journalists and bloggers who
took part
in Confecom” (Borges 2016). In August, it
promoted
the First National BlogProg Meeting in São Paulo. Other meetings
followed in
2011 (Brasília), 2012 (Salvador), 2014 (São Paulo), 2016 (Belo
Horizonte).
Additionally, Barão de Itararé promoted other events, such as
an
international meeting in 2011. In 2013, it sponsored the first edition
of the
National Course of Communications for Media Activists, targeting
activists from
community, unions and alternative media.
According to its president Altamiro Borges, Barão de Itararé has four core objectives: 1) to take part in the fight for the democratisation of the Brazilian media; 2) the support of alternative media in Brazil; 3) the study of the transformations happening in the media landscape at the present; 4) the education of new communication activists. In order to do this, Barão de Itararé conciliates a rigid hierarchical structure, which include a President, a General Secretary, different Directors, a Fiscal Council and an Advisory Council with a considerable diversity in its membership, including intellectuals from different leftist groups. As Penteado and Souza put it, it “presents a transitional model between the traditional one and those exclusively based online, as it sustains a verticalized structure and actors associated to it preserve their autonomy to act and produce content” (2016, 47-48). These characteristics constitute Barão de Itararé’s role of a political vanguard role in BP. Although activists associated with PCdoB have a particularly prominent role in Barão de Itararé, their influence on the BP agenda is quite limited. PCdoB is not a significant player in national politics, and therefore its political ambitions are modest. This allows other agents to feel comfortable with Barão de Itararé’s role. Paulo Henrique Amorim, whose core source of authority is associated with journalism, provides an example:
I am sympathetic to the Instituto de Mídia
Alternativa Barão de Itararé, which tries to gather giant egos around
punctual
missions. But his president Miro Borges often succeeds. The movement’s
results
are stronger than the sum of progressive bloggers. They have a role
that I
think is formidable: to disseminate the poison that, in the end,
contaminates
the dominant system (Amorim 2017).
4. Modus Operandi and Impact
Putting it simple, BP provides the
basis for
a critical counter-public – that is a counterhegemonic public sphere (Fuchs 2010; Negt and
Kluge 1993)
– aiming to challenge the views disseminated by the mainstream media.
As BP is
not only a vehicle, but a media ecosystem (Magalhães
and
Albuquerque 2017; Rovai 2018), the
activities
of its members include not only producing and divulgating media
content, but
also sharing material produced by fellow members, or other critical
content. In
most cases, the material vehiculated by BP consist of pieces critical
to the
mainstream media news coverage, as well as interviews and analytical
pieces,
and more rarely, in-depth reporting.
A concrete example, referring to
the Bolinhagate
incident, illustrates the dynamics of BP collaboration in opposing
mainstream
news media framings. In the morning of October 20, 2010, just a few
days before
the presidential elections – in which PT’s Dilma Rousseff appeared as
a clear
favourite – José Serra, the main candidate opposing PT’s government
was hit by
an object on his head, during a campaign walking tour in Rio de
Janeiro. The
walking tour was then cancelled, and Serra was taken to a hospital.
The scene
was registered by a Folha de S. Paulo reporter with a cell
phone camera,
and at night, it was exhibited by Jornal Nacional, Rede
Globo’s main
newscast, in a two and half minutes news piece that described the
object as
being solid, and therefore the situation as an attempt against Serra,
made by
PT activists. In the following day, Jornal Nacional dedicated
seven
minutes to the incident, presenting a non-official report made by the
forensic
expert Ricardo Molina. Other mainstream news media, such as the
newspapers Folha
de S. Paulo, O Estado de São Paulo and Veja
magazine, echoed
the idea that Serra had been hit by a solid object.
Then, Daniel Florêncio, a film
maker, posted
on Twitter a video entitled “Bolinhagate – the Jornal Nacional
edition”,
which denounced the mainstream media’s coverage as a fabrication.
According to
him, Serra was hit by a paper ball (bolinha de papel in
Portuguese), and
not a solid object (in fact, posterior images did not show any bruises
on
Serra’s head, and this is significant, as he is bald). The video was
retweeted
by Cynara Menezes and other influent bloggers and then went viral. Viomundo
published a letter, written by the Federal Forensic Experts
Association,
raising doubts about the mainstream version of the incident. Other
important BP
vehicles shared the letter. Rodrigo Vianna published on his blog O
Escrevinhador that some journalists from the Globo Network
became so
ashamed of the Jornal Nacional’s seven-minutes news segment
that they
booed when it aired.
Humour was another resource
employed to
spread the message. Serra was portrayed as the Matrix’s character Neo,
dodging
a paper ball. A picture showed a paper ball with the X-Files title “I
want to
believe” behind it. Activists even created a flash game, which invited
players
to throw paper balls at Serra, as he tried to hide behind the Jornal
Nacional’s bench. BP’s version reverberated in the international
media and
hashtags related to the case became trend topics on Twitter.
The Bolinhagate case presents a
vivid example
of how a collective effort made by BP members allowed them to
successfully
counter mainstream media framings. BP members made intensive use of
social
networking sites to propagate their narratives. Comparative analysis
shows that
Brasil 247, one of the most prominent progressive bloggers, managed to
gather
more visibility than some traditional media organisations.
Time-series of the total shares of
publications on Facebook reveals that the Brasil 247 fan page reached
16
million shares on 2016, the year of Dilma Rousseff’s ousting by the
Brazilian
Parliament. In comparison, O
Globo,
one of the largest newspapers in the country, shows an opposite trend
of decay
after 2014. Results shed light on BP’s
struggle for
online visibility, as Progressive bloggers were able to amass more
shares than
resourceful media organizations.
5. The Challenges ahead of BP
Having been created during the
PT-governments era, BP has been facing unprecedented challenges in
recent
years. During the second term of Dilma Rousseff’s presidency, PT
politicians
and its allies became subject to a continuous harassment by the
judiciary,
public prosecutors, the press, and far-right activists. Things became
worse
when vice-president Michel Temer took Rousseff’s place after her
impeachment.
In order to avoid PT’s return to power, former president Lula – who
was the
favourite in all electoral polls to win the presidential race – was
arrested. The
Brazilian Supreme Court prohibited that Lula gave interviews to the
press under
the allegation that this could “disturb” the electoral process.
Additionally,
during the entire campaign the mainstream media presented Fernando
Haddad, who
replaced Lula as PT’s candidate, as being a political extremist who is
just as
dangerous to democracy as Jair Bolsonaro (Feres
Junior
and Gagliardi 2019).
The Brazilian mainstream media has traditionally refused to recognise BP members as legitimate media agents, as they claim for themselves the monopoly of the right of doing genuine journalism. To be sure, their monopolist demands are so extensive that, in October 2016, the Associação Nacional de Jornais (National Newspapers Association or ANJ) required that the Brazilian Supreme Court limits the activities of the Brazilian branches of foreign online journalism outlets – as, for instance, BBC Brasil and El País Brasil – under the allegation that they violate a Constitutional limit that establishes a 30-percent limit of foreign participation in Brazilian media organizations (Folha de S. Paulo 2016). Mainstream media play an even rougher role in the fight against their BP competitors, which they call “dirty blogs” and to whom they deny a journalistic status, despite the fact that in many cases bloggers previously had a solid career in the mainstream media.
The consequences of this can be very serious, as illustrated by the case of Blog da Cidadania’s Eduardo Guimarães. In March 2017, he was detained by the Federal Police under the orders of Judge Moro, who accused his blog of being a “vehicle of political propaganda” and releasing confidential information that put at risk the Lava Jato’s investigations. According to Moro, as Guimarães was not a journalist, he had no right to the legal protection offered to journalists. More recently, in 2019, Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer Prize winner ahead of the Intercept Brasil was portrayed by part of the mainstream media as being a hacker, rather than a journalist, in an attempt to demoralize the Vaza Jato series, presenting it in a criminal framing.
A second challenge is the emergence
of a
highly popular alt-right media ecosystem. In the events leading to the
parliamentary coup against Dilma Rousseff, strong machines of
far-right
propaganda disputed the narratives and discourse both from the
traditional
journalism vehicles and from progressive bloggers. The far-right
ecosystem is a
loosely connected network of diverse actors, ranging from journalists
fired
from the national press, authoritarian politicians, neo-Pentecostal
preachers,
digital savvy youngsters, and a myriad of parody/fake accounts (Santos
Junior 2019). The far-right groups’ model
of operation differs from BP particularly considering the
anti-systemic
hostility against parties, as well as the political, journalistic and
intellectual
establishment (Sponholz and
Christofoletti 2019). The communication practices resemble
astroturfing and
informational warfare techniques such as the public harassment of
opposition
leaders, physical threats; all sorts of innuendo and smear campaigns (Santos Junior 2019).
Finally, a more recent development
refers to
the moral panic that has been generated, in a worldwide scale, around
fake news
(Carlson 2018), which gained ground in 2016, after the referendum that
decided
for the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) and the
election
of Donald Trump as the President of the United States. In both cases,
“Russian
meddling” was blamed as one of the key factors explaining these
electoral
results (Boyd-Barrett 2019). The fake
news
problem gained a lot of attention in March 2018, when it was revealed
that
Cambridge Analytica, a political strategy company that worked for
Trump,
irregularly obtained data from more than 50 million Facebook users,
and
Facebook did nothing to prevent this surveillance.
This scandal contributed to
aggravate
already existing accusations against social media platforms as being
co-responsible for the fake news wave. Reacting to these critiques,
social
media platforms engaged in a series of practices that, arguably, aimed
to
contain fake news diffusion. In Brazil, Facebook Journalism Project
and Google
News Initiative provided financial backing for Projeto Comprova
(Comprova
Project), an initiative joining three fact-checking agencies (Lupa,
Truco
and Aos Fatos) and news media outlets – some of them belonging
to the
mainstream media, as Veja, Folha de S. Paulo and O
Estado de
São Paulo (Strano 2018). Added to
this, Facebook
endowed Lupa and Aos Fatos with the responsibility of
checking
the distribution of fake news in its platform (Facebook 2018).
Perpetrators
would be eventually punished with a temporary or even permanent ban.
Although
fake news has been often associated with the far-right alt-media, the
new
censorship dynamics established by Facebook and the fact-checking
agencies
allowed them also to target BP members. For instance, on June 12,
2018, Revista
Forum published the information that Pope Francis sent a chaplet
and a
letter to Lula, in order to express his solidarity to him. Although
there were
controversies with respect to details of the incident, Lupa promptly
classified
this news as fake news and as a consequence Revista Forum was
subject to
retaliatory measures, which included a temporary Facebook ban.
6. Bolsonaro’s Government and the Unexpected Opportunities for BP
At
a first
sight, the rise of Jair Bolsonaro – an unabashed defender of the
previous
Brazilian military regime, who once said he intended to shoot
leftist activists
– to the Brazilian presidency seems to put BP in great peril.
Surprisingly,
this appears to not be the case. Bolsonaro’s far-right activists do
not
identify BP as their prime adversary. Instead, they have focused
their
attention on the mainstream media, which they accuse to be “leftist”
and
“petista”. Although some leftists have been targeted by Bolsonaro
activists’
harassment – The Intercept Brasil, in particular – this
happened in a
much less systematic manner than it would be expected. Indeed, it is
possible
to argue that Bolsonaro’s disastrous and divisive style of
government provides
BP with promising political opportunities.
In
order to
understand that, it is necessary to highlight the very special
circumstances
allowing the 2016 coup against President Rousseff to happen. This
was only
possible because different fractions of the Brazilian political
right joined
forces with the mainstream media, leading sectors of the judiciary
and the
Prosecutor’s Office, the
Federal
Police and military leaders to topple PT by any means (Albuquerque
2019; Tatagiba 2018). By
blaming PT as the source of all corruption existing in Brazil, they
succeeded
in presenting the Brazilian left in a criminal framing and contended
that the
solution for the Brazil’s political problems was to be achieved by
judicial
means. Judge Sergio Moro emerged, in their discourse, as the leader
of a moral
crusade, and the main antagonist of Lula, who was pictured as the
mastermind of
the enormous corruption schema that, allegedly, was led by PT (Damgaard 2018; Feres
Junior and Gagliardi 2019). The far-right activists
associated with
Bolsonaro had a subsidiary role in this arrangement, as they were
responsible
for assembling people for the anti-PT manifestations and physically
intimidating
the leftists (Santos Junior 2019; Tatagiba 2018), who
the press, conveniently, ignored.
Contrary to Rousseff, vice-president
Temer, who
took her place, had several accusations of corruption pending
against him. In
his government, several social policies established by the PT-led
governments
were reverted, the economy stalled, and the confidence in the
institutions of
representative government collapsed (Goldstein 2019). In
2018, Lula emerged as the clear favorite to win the elections, but
he was put
in jail on the orders of Judge Sergio Moro. Contrary to the
mainstream elites’
expectancies, however, this did not benefit the institutional right.
Rather,
the crisis of legitimacy of the representative institutions, which
resulted
from the Lava Jato Operation, opened the way for the antisystem
candidate Jair
Bolsonaro. He disputed the second round of the election with
Fernando Haddad, a
candidate with a political moderate profile, who was the former
mayor of the
city of São Paulo and succeeded Lula as the PT candidate. Although
the
mainstream media were not sympathetic to Bolsonaro, they actually
preferred him
to Haddad, who was presented as being as dangerous to democracy as
Bolsonaro –
but worse than him, because he supposedly was a radical leftist (O Estado de São
Paulo 2018).
The rise of Bolsonaro to the
presidency proved
to be disastrous for the unity of the Brazilian right. Even though
the
mainstream media and rightist forces support Bolsonaro’s neoliberal
reforms,
his outrageous style of government, poor economic indexes and
pathetic
performance in international forums (as in his inaugural discourse
in the UN
General Assembly), blatant nepotism (illustrated by his attempt to
nominate his
son Eduardo Bolsonaro as Brazilian Ambassador to the United States),
and, last
but not least, reports about his family connections with criminal
organisations
(UO
2019) have
raised a severe criticism among the mainstream press – although
nothing
comparable to the treatment they gave to Lula or PT. In his turn, in
many
occasions Bolsonaro complained about the mainstream media coverage
of his
government – for instance, he threatened to stop giving interviews
unless they
“tell the truth” about his discourse at the UN – and even suggested
he could
take measures to economically constrain some media. Bolsonaro also
has
maintained conflictual relations with the Brazilian Congress,
Supreme Court,
and even his own political party. The popularity of the president
plummeted. He
has been rated as the worst first term president so far, and even
some of his
far-right supporters now abrogate him.
The institutional crisis is not
limited to
Bolsonaro’s government, however. When, Sergio Moro accepted his
invitation to
be the Minister of Justice, the credibility of the Lava Jato
Operation suffered
a major blow, as his impartiality became highly questionable.
Although part of
the mainstream media initially presented him as the “rational”,
“institutional”
face of the government, his prestige was damaged by Bolsonaro’s
numerous
scandals and public acts to demote him. Even worse, the Vaza Jato
series – a
major investigative report led by the renowned journalist Glenn
Greenwald on leaked
Telegram chats among task force members – indicated that the process
that led
to Lula’s imprisonment was a judicial farce, as the Judge and the
prosecutors
articulated their actions not only with each other, but also with
the
mainstream media, in an effort to de-moralise Lula and PT. Indeed, Folha
de
S. Paulo’s newspaper present self-criticism regarding its
coverage of Lava
Jato (Lima
2019). At the
present, the Brazilian judiciary is deeply divided at all levels. In
sum,
Brazil currently experiences an extraordinarily serious
institutional crisis in
all branches of government.
As serious as the Brazilian current
situation
may be, from the perspective of the Left and BP in particular, it
represents a
political opportunity. Once formidable, the forces that overthrew
Dilma
Rousseff from the presidency and put Lula in jail are now divided
and have
spent a lot of energy fighting each other. At the same time,
mounting public
evidences indicate that Lula’s image as the mastermind of corruption
in Brazil
was a fabrication with political purposes. This, together with the
dignity shown
by Lula in jail – he refused to make any deal with the Justice
Department – and
the huge contrast between the achievements of his government and the
disasters
that followed the 2016 coup provide a fertile ground for the
re-organisation of
the left in Brazil. At a time when the adversaries are divided, the
ability of
BP to work as a political communication vanguard makes it a very
relevant
instrument to unify the discourse of the left around a common
rhetoric and
cause.
7. BP in Perspective: The Role of Vanguard in Networked Media Activism
In the 2010s, a new orthodoxy
emerged
regarding mediated social activism, having in the works of Castells (2012) and Bennett and Segerberg (2013)
their main exponents. Based on protests
occurring in different parts of the world – Tunisia, Iceland, Spain,
United
States, Iran, among many other examples – they suggested that the
Internet
offered brand new opportunities for political mobilisation, as it
allowed
people to connect to each other beyond the limits of physical space.
According
to Castells, the digital media allow individuals to recognise common
problems
and, then, by joining forces and occupying public spaces, to challenge
the
established powers. As these movements originate in the emotions of
individuals, shared through networked cognitive empathy, they “are the
less
hierarchical in their organization and the more participatory in the
movement”
(Castells 2012, 15).
In a similar vein, Bennett and Segerberg identify these movements as organised on the basis of a digitally networked connective action model, which differs from the traditional collective action model, as it is neither structured in reference to an organising centre nor does it have a hierarchical structure. Rather, such movements are based on the phenomenon of personalised politic that features “citizens seeking more flexible association with causes, ideas, and political organizations” (Bennett and Segerberg 2013, 5). In both cases, the idea that vanguards are an indispensable part of political movements seem to be an anathema.
Yet, as impressive as these movements seemed to be at a first glance, their capacity to produce concrete results in the mid-term proved to be questionable at best, as they were not able to secure sustainable changes and, worse, in many countries governments actually turned to the right or even, as in Brazil, to the far-right. As Gerbaudo (2013a; 2013b) observed, in reference to Egypt, the organisational fragility of the prodemocracy movement, closely associated to the informal character of mobilisation and the model of leaderless resistance, not only prevented them to reach their goals but, indeed, resulted in a military coup that launched the country again into a full dictatorial state. This suggests that, contrary to the hopes of Castells and Bennett/Seberberg, vanguards may still be necessary to convert revolutionary situations into revolutionary outcomes (Tilly 1978).
Contrary to the dominant view, this article argues, with basis on the example of BP, that there is still room for the collective action in networked movements, and old models of organisation, associated to the socialist movements – as the role of the political vanguards – remain relevant in the digital era. As tempting as the ideals of “personalisation” and “participation” may be, they don’t provide a solid basis for coherent collective movements (Fenton and Barassi 2011; Fuchs 2010). However, the concrete manners to instrumentalise political vanguards are not obvious, as the present social and technological circumstances differ sharply from those existing when the notion of political vanguard was coined (Pimlott 2015). For this reason, it can be instructive to analyse concrete initiatives based on the political vanguard principle as, for instance, BP. More than simply an alternative, BP is a critical media initiative (Fuchs 2010), which combines a networked model of action (through hyperlinks and content sharing) with centralised principles of organisation (Barão de Itararé Center is a central piece in this arrangement). BP also preserves some personalised traits – not a surprise given its origins lie in personal blogs – which help to provide it with a considerable capillarity, but, at the same time, it is a considerably institutionalised environment, in which traditional institutions as political parties, social movements and journalism exert a core organising role. Until today, this model of organisation allows BP to work as an effective critical media environment. However, BP’s dependence on social media may be a factor of risk to its survival, as they, allied to the mainstream media and fact-checking agencies, have employed the rhetoric of combating fake news as a tool for curbing political dissidence.