Favelas Media Production and Self-Representation

A TV broadcast, radios, blogs and newspapers: Rocinha favela thrives in multiple means of expressions and communication. How were these media born and how did they develop inside the community? Who are the participants involved, in a panorama of NGOs, institutions and local actors? An analysis that can't bypass the historical and social context of urbanisation and gentrification in Rio de Janeiro, the formation of these peculiar Brazilian shanty-towns, favelas. Making use of Portuguese documentation and recent research material, a preliminary mapping will be provided, along with broad assessments, providing outlooks on these insufficiently addressed although rather seminal phenomena. For instance, presenting a mixture of elements from commercial, public service and community television, how some stations exist in an ‘anarchic’ and ‘rhizomatic’ reality. At the same time investigating the relationship between poverty, identity and person-hood in Latin America, this work will try to give insights into the endangered favelas existence, squeezed between 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics. «It's possible to hear “the voice of the morro with no owners!” from anywhere in the world»