When the Internet absorbs television: Audience practices, engagement with content and social change in Brazil
Creators: name: Garcia-Da-Rocha, Flavio
Publisher: name: Loughborough University
Year: 2022
Subjects: Uncategorized

description: This study investigates the practices of video consumption of audiences in Brazil in the context of the transformations brought by the Internet and digital technologies. Television in Brazil had been dominated for decades by telenovelas, concentrating the narrative power on one network and a few authors. The objective is to investigate if the increased availability of video content via the Internet has any impact on social inequality, now that a great proportion of the population across the social spectrum have achieved access. The focus is on consumption from a perspective of viewing rituals and the appropriation of digital devices and Internet content into everyday practices. The study, which brings a perspective of the Global South, involved six months of immersive fieldwork in the city of Rio de Janeiro investigating viewing practices and content choices of young adults who have had access to the Internet for at least five years. Beyond the ethnographic observation and fieldnotes, the data collection included the participation of thirty-one people from three different classes in a research protocol consisting of a questionnaire, two in-depth interviews and a diary of viewing. The analysis used a grounded theory approach perspective (Glaser &amp; Strauss, 1967), located within audience and cultural studies (Ang, 1996; Hall &amp; du Gay, 1996; Martín-Barbero, 1993; Morley &amp; Silverstone, 1991), framed analytically with help of the circuit of culture (du Gay et al., 2013; Hall et al., 2013; R. Johnson, 1986), supported by Bourdieu’s sociology of reproduction, as reworked by several scholars (Adkins &amp; Skeggs, 2004; McKnight &amp; Chandler, 2012; McLeod, 2005; Moi, 1991; J. Souza, 2005a, 2012), and a perspective of inequality in access and use of the Internet (Hargittai &amp; Hinnant, 2008; Prieur &amp; Savage, 2013; van Dijk, 2019; Warschauer, 2003). Viewing practices indicate that all participants consume video content accessed via the Internet, even those that give preference to linear television. They move seamlessly between screens, platforms, sources, and types of content in extremely personalised flows. The analysis suggests that for audiences it matters less and less thinking in terms of television ‘and’ the Internet. When talking about the ‘various screens,’ more and more they are becoming just differently sized visual interfaces with the Internet. Even for those who still receive television signals over the air, by cable or satellite, the practical reality of television can no longer be thought of separately from the Internet. Their practices suggest that television has been absorbed by the Internet, immersed in a new logic that allows for more flexibility of use and opens to a much wider variety of audiovisual content. From a perspective of content choices, participants who identify with nondominant cultural groups, particularly related to gender, sexuality, and race, demonstrate a clear pattern of searching for or receiving referrals of video content that is not traditionally available on broadcast television or of easy access without Internet connection. Women concerned with gender issues, and those that identify as LGBTQ and/or Black engage intensively with video content related to their identities, which they watch, actively search, share, and discuss among friends and online groups who have the same identity concerns. Participants express the relevance of the Internet in their processes of awareness in relation to their identities, and the study suggests that such video content helps their self-change and the development of a resistant habitus, in response to hegemonic dispositions related to patriarchy, heteronormativity or racial hierarchies inculcated in their socialisation. From a structural perspective, the public online engagement with content via the Internet makes visible audience’s interpretations (Jenkins et al., 2013; Livingstone, 2004; Picone et al., 2019). The study argues that media representations of nondominant groups may be influenced by the aggregated daily individual online practices of clicking, watching, sharing, commenting, and even producing content related to their identities, which are closely followed by producers of all types and corporations who track online data. These nondominant groups, most particularly Black people have a history of lack of or stereotypical representation in mainstream media in Brazil (Araújo, 2000). Nevertheless, there has been some improvement in recent years, due to a variety of social developments, including affirmative action initiatives and decades of struggle of the Black movement. Many believe that the Internet is helping this process. Based on the analysis of the practices of Black participants, the study suggests that the online video consumption on Blacks in Brazil is playing a part. Given that most Black people in Brazil for historical reasons belong to the lower income groups (Nascimento, 1978; J. Souza, 2005a), a more inclusive media representation may allow for a valorisation of their cultural and social capital, help fighting racism and discrimination, and in the long run help bridging acute social inequalities.