Last week during the Semana Nacional de Democratização de Comunicação Anderson and I presented our first media literacy workshop on critically analyzing advertising and propaganda. Anderson works with an organization called Ventilador Cultural (cultural fan) that works in the social communication movements training people in communication techniques, production, and now MEDIA LITERACY!! We did not have a big turnout (6 total), but it was a start. The whole format went well and with some minor adjustments, we will be ready to do it again. Of course after the workshop was over everyone said how interested they are and that we should give the workshop at their organization, blah, blah. Interested? Yes. Enough to come on a Wednesday evening after work? Not a chance. Some people have even asked to use our material in their own presentations (who didn't bother to come...) hmmm. Not sure how I feel about that.
On the other hand, we did get some more publicity by doing an interview on "Sopa Diario" on the University TV station. I have to say I was really nervous--not really about being on TV, but about being on TV in PORTUGUESE. How am I going to explain what media literacy is, the purpose of our project, what the workshop was like in Portuguese? Other than one obvious blank out moment, things went okay. Most of the feedback from people was that they were able to understand me...whew. We actually have received a few emails from people interested in what we are doing and collaborating on workshops. This feels like an important first step for getting things moving. The plan is to create a series of workshops on media literacy for the community and release the material as PDF's under creative commons. At that stage we would like to begin working more with teachers and NGO leaders to do some intense trainings with the eventual plan of creating a media literacy curriculum for the public schools. This is a seriously long-term goal that is going to require grant money as some point (so I can quit teaching English!). We are starting to make some connections, and the money is out there--we just have to find it.
The media in this country is so tightly controlled and controlling. The Brazilian world revolves around Globo and the 8 pm soap opera. Interestingly, Globo was started with the help of the US during the Brazilian dictatorship...there are still questions of US involvement. There was a British documentary made about Globo called something like "More than Citizen Kane" about the owner of Globo, but it was censored and the production was never finished. I downloaded it off of the amazing site www.midiaindependente.org/ which is a spin-off of the Indy media center http://www.indymedia.org/pt/. These site allow people to upload their own media. A lot of the videos about the social movements here in Recife are on this site. I saw a great shirt during the communication week that said (in Portuguese) "Hate the media? Make media!" Such an incredible movement of people. Is this happening in the US? I can think of a few groups in Albuquerque interested in the alternative communication movement, but it doesn't seem to be one of the major discussions around the water cooler. I guess it is not a big discussion around the water cooler at my job either--except for the 2 teachers that saw me on TV. But that was more shock than anything else.
There is another amazing movement called "Quem financia a Baixaria é Contra a Cidadania" This group targets how people are being represented on TV shows in regards to human rights. There is a strong tradition of local programs that display violence and poverty as entertainment while violating the rights of many of the people they show. In many of the poor neighborhoods, the need to be seen (acknowledged) is manipulated by these programs. The campaign targets the companies that finance these programs through advertising. They have been very successful at bringing this to the attention of the government and starting to create regulations (and consequences) for violating human rights on television. Their site is: http://www.eticanatv.org.br/
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