Futures of Learning

Gilberto Gil Image by Joi Ito, http://blog.ito.com/dmp/in-japanese-gilberto-gils-talk-at-google-zeitgeist-google-zeitgeist.html

From music, food and dance to religion, architecture and the particular form of Portuguese spoken by Brazilians, Brazilian culture is often characterized by its ethos of mixture and creolization. While poverty rates, class and racial divisions suggest that the country is a long way off from attaining the aspirations articulated in the wider public discourse, the stress on culture, creativity and, most recently, the values of remix culture represents one of the unique features of the new media landscape in Brazil (Bar, personal communication). Indeed, there has been a huge effort from the government to push digital remix culture thanks in no small measure to Gilberto Gil.

Gilberto Gil, Brazil’s Minister of Culture from 2003 to 2008, virtually embodies this spirit of remix. Originally from Salvador in the Northeastern regions of Brazil, Gil rose to prominence in the 1960s for his politically inspired songs and activism which led to his exile in London for three years (1969-1972) during the reign of Brazil’s military regime. After returning to Brazil, Gil continued to create and perform music (he is often attributed with introducing reggae to Brazil) and promote Afro-Brazilian cultural forms in carnival (the Afro-Brazilian afoxé tradition). In the late 1980s, Gil was elected into government in the state of Bahia and in 2003 President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appointed Gil as Brazil’s new Minister of Culture. Noteably, Gil was only the second black person appointed a member of the nation’s cabinet. Almost immediately after being appointed Gil established a relationship with Creative Commons and began working towards making music available for free in digital formats. Under the leadership of Gilberto Gil, The Brazilian Ministry of Culture has been using its DPIs to create a network of free software multimedia studios to support free cultural transmission (Ferraro, Bria and Persico n.d., Kenny 2005). One of the foci of the Pontos de Cultura (Points of Culture) is to create an archive of Brazilian music, which will be stored in digital form and governed by a license inspired by free software’s GPL.

In today’s blog post, I will focus upon new media production (especially videos) in online spaces. I will then turn to new media production activities and the ways in which the integration of new media into these programs are utilized to address issues of inequity, literacy, violence and crime among Brazilian youth.

New Media Production Online

Video-sharing sites are prominent in Brazil. In July of 2008, comScore (2008) estimated that there were 11.5 million visitors to YouTube, 8.3 million visits to Globos Videos, 1.5 million visitors to MSN Video, 1.1 million videos to StartVG.com and 756, 000 visitors to WeShow.com. While the more traditional media outlets such as Globo Media, Abril and Grupo Folha have historically played a role in the dissemination of music, film and other cultural forms, sites like Overmundo (see blog post on internet practices) continue (SIG-III 2007). 

In terms of content, Brazil’s new media production resembles what occurs in the United States (see Lange and Ito Forthcoming), India and China. Viral videos range from commercials, old clips of popular television shows such as Big Brother Brazil, telenovelas and comedy to ones that celebrate Brazilian culture. For example, there are a number of films focusing upon great moments in Brazilian football and football legends such as Pele or Ronaldinho:

Ronaldhinho Movie

There are examples of capoeira, the martial arts form historically practiced by Afro-Brazilians. In some cases these are movie clips of capoeira practioners in films competing against other forms of martial arts, the commentary often focusing upon the relative merits (and often the dominance) of Brazilian capoeira. In other cases, these videos are celebrations of particularly skillful individuals, such as this remix of Brazilian dancer bboy performing capoeira:

Bboy Aranha - Watch the best video clips here.

Bboy Aranha

There are also examples of random individuals messing around in front of a camera, such as this video of a woman dancing Brazilian-style:

Gatinha Gostosa Pernão Sarado Brasileira Dançando Funk - The best bloopers are here

Gatinha Gostosa Pernão Sarado Brasileira Dançando Funk

In addition to online videos posted by ordinary Brazilians, there has been a concerted effort to make Brazilian culture more prominent online or, to use one of Gilberto Gil’s phrases, to “tropicalise” the internet. For instance, the Canto Livre project was designed for the archival and circulation of “free music” made in Brazil, for Brazilians (and the world) to remix and re-create. Another focus is to work with groups active in the areas of music or video, indigenous crafts or capoeira, graffiti and circus, which will be equipped with multimedia hardware, free software and a budget in order to produce, document and freely share with the world their cultural expressions (see Wizards of Oz 2005).
While music and videos celebrating the creativity and culture of Brazil may originate in Brazil, it is also clear that non-Brazilians are generating commentary and adaptation of Brazilian cultural forms. One example are the range of videos (and commentary) teaching and demonstrating capoeira, a practice that has gained in popularity internationally alongside karate. We also see the localization of content, such as the remix and translation of Anime Music Videos into Portuguese:

Naruto AMV Brasil

From the viral circulation of new media productions on sites like Orkut where local networks are reinforced to more open spaces like YouTube where, in conjunction with recommendation systems, the content helps to determine modes of engagement, Brazilian’s engagement with new media production online reflects and continues to create further opportunities for transnational cultural flows.

New Media Production Programs for Youth

While the traffic in new media is widespread, a range of NGOs and other governmental organizations have prioritized new media programs that focus upon issues of access and equity for youth, particularly disenfranchised youth. Although government initiatives such as Proinfo are directed towards improving access in schools, 2005 estimates suggest that only 16.7% of schools had access to the internet (2www.pnud.org.br). In October 2007, the Ministry of Education executed a bid for the acquisition of 90,000 computers with Debian GNU/Linux 4 pre-installed as well as wireless cards, wireless routers and laser printers, to be installed at 9,000 schools, at least 3,000 of them in rural areas (http://times.debian.net/1189).

Alongside access, much of the academic literature focuses on the impact of the introduction and use of computers in schools (Braga 2007a; de Fatima D’Assumpcao Castro and Alves 2007; Sorj and Remold 2005), how to create effective digital learning environments (Blikstein and Cavallo 2003; Franco and Deus Lopez 2005) and how these contribute to the overall aim of creating a Brazilian Information Society (Jorente 2008). A dominant education portal is EduKBR, which was conceived as a virtual internet community to enhance the quality of education through access to online information, activities, cooperative projects communication/interaction tools in Portuguese. The site is set up for use by schools, youth and their parents and education professionals (Lucena 2002, 2001). Similarly the School of the Future is an interdisciplinary, self-sustaining research laboratory of the University of Sao Paulo, which has developed a series of research and development projects to explore the potentials of new information technologies to advance learning (Litto 2006). The projects include a focus on virtual learning communities for primary and secondary schools, the creation of multimedia digital libraries on the web, principally for humanistic learning; the production of learning objects, and their appropriate repositories, for science education at all levels of study; the creation and development of public-access telecentres in low-income neighborhoods, featuring web-based mini-courses; the furnishing of useful information on interfacing with government agencies to a sector of the population normally inexperienced with citizen’s rights, and weekly online surveys to determine the information needs and practices and opinions in general of this heretofore “excluded” segment; and the development of a community of chief information officers of Brazilian and Latin American institutions of higher learning so as to foster the exchange of experiences and the formation of regional partnerships. In these efforts, the general concern is with creating a digital media literacy (Braga 2007b; Fatin and Girardello 2008) that will help students become global citizens (Lima and Brown 2007) and experiment in a safe environment (Cavallo and Couch n.d.).

In addition to providing access and new environments for learning in schools, there are a number of initiatives that provide a space for youth, often from marginalized areas, to engage with digital media technologies. Rather than just being about tinkering with technologies per se, these initiatives have several objectives: providing a safe space to keep children of the streets and out of gangs, providing them with access to technology and thereby bridging the digital divide, and giving them ICT skills that might ultimately lead to better employment prospects. The best known initiative is the Committee for Democracy in Information Technology (CDI) http://www.cdi.org.br, a non-governmental, non-profit organization with the broader mission of promoting the social inclusion of low-income communities by using Information and Communication Technologies as tools for building and exercising citizens rights. In the program, students learn how to use computers and software while discussing issues of particular interest to their community, such as human rights, environment, sexual education, health and non-violence. It is also aimed at filling at vacuum in public education.Another initiative is the Kidlink House (KHouse) Internet centres, which serve students at local schools, street kids, youth in a local community, and indigenous kids. KHouse goals include keeping kids off the street, motivating street kids to return to school, promoting literacy, supporting kids through difficult times, and giving youth more control over their lives. The first KHouse was opened in March 1996, in the RioData Centro of PUC-RJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (http://www.kidlink.org/english/general/history.html).

Although authoritative figures are difficult to locate, about 80% of the world’s computer hackers are thought to operate from Brazil (Red Orbit 2005) and 60 to 70 per cent of the software and hardware available in Brazil are thought to be pirated. Estimates suggest that 80 percent of computer crimes are committed by teens, HackerTeen was created to provide online training in computer skills that students can access remotely. An attempt to channel the so-called negative use of their skills into more positive outlets, participants in this program are presented with materials in the form of comic books, with work plans described as “missions” that teens must complete using the skills they have learned. Designed as a form of edutainment, the program integrates a belt system like Karate - from white-belt beginner to black-belt advanced - to measure training progress. According to the program, 78 per cent of the young people who have earned black belts have found employment in the Brazilian IT job market (http://www.hackerteen.com/pt-br). Similarly, Vamos blogar (http://blogar.org), a literacy curriculum based on multimedia weblogs for street children in Rio de Janeiro, was established by Saori Fotenos as part of the Reuters Digital Vision program at Stanford University. It works in partnership with local NGO Projeto Uerê at an alternative school in Rio (http://projetouere.blogspot.com/) and targets lack of self-esteem and employability skills amongst this at-risk population. The project is designed to build competencies around self-generated content for motivation. It also provides kids with something to do, gives them jobs off the streets and out of illicit trades (http://rdvp.org/fellows/2005-2006/saori-fotenos/).

Other programs include:

City of Knowledge digital media project led by Gilson Schwartz at the University of Sao Paulo (Schwartz 2008).

The Amplifying Voices after school program (Fotenos and Rohatgi 2007)

The MobileED platform developed by the media lab at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in collaboration with the Meraka Institute in South Africa, has pilot projects in Brazil (Kuner and Vosloo 2007).

Conclusion: The Value of Culture and Creativity

One of the unique facets of Brazil’s stance towards the internet and new media has been its continued encouragement of creativity and the expression and development of Brazilian culture. Brazil is also a heavy user and promoter of open source software, predominantly Linux, which is used by governments, universities and even supermarkets (Red Orbit 2005). Coupled with the Brazilian government’s sociopolitical stance on the virtues of open source software for the creation of social and digital inclusion, the affordability of Linux and the use of recycled and refurbished computers provides an important motivation for the use of free software. As Marcelo D’Elia Branco, coordinator of Projeto Software Livre Brasil, states, “information technology and Brazilians were a perfect marriage. Brazilians historically were interested in innovation, but they didn’t have good schools or universities, so they depended on their own creativity. The Internet is all about this kind of grass-roots creativity” (Red Orbit 2005). Indeed, when Lawrence Lessig’s visited the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, he saw tents where young people (not only Brazilians) learned how to use open-source media editing software and then making their own media productions (Lessig 2005). Such examples demonstrate the promise of Brazil’s innovative and, at times, radical perspective on the value of culture and creativity central to new media production.

References:

Blikstein, Paolo and David Cavallo. 2003. “God Hides in the Details: Design and Implementation of technology-enabled learning environments in public education.” Proceedings of Eurologo 2003 Conference

Braga, Denise Bertoli. 2007a. “Lack of access to new media and digital technologies and complexities of collective sharing of software and computers.” Language and Education 21 (3): xx.

Braga, Denise Bertoli. 2007b. “Developing Critical Social Awareness through Digital Literacy Practices within the Context of Higher Education in Brazil.” Language and Education 21 (3): 180-196.

Cavallo, Alice and Couch, Alicia n.d. “Virtual Forum Theater - a computer supported collaborative learning environment for underpriviledged children.”

Department for International Development n.d. The Development Challenge for Brazil. http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/brazildevchallenge.pdf, Accessed January 26, 2009.

comScore. 2008. Brazilians’ Engagement with Online Multimedia Content Impeded By Lack of Home Broadband Penetration. September 17, 2008

Fantin, M and G Girardello. 2008. “Digital Literacy and Cultural Mediations to the Digital Divide.” In Selected Readings on Global Information Technology. Hakikur Rahman (ed.) Idea Group

de Fatima D’Assumpcao Castro, Maria and Luiz Anastacio Alvez. 2007. The Implementation and Use of Computers in Education in Brazil: Niteroi City/Rio de Janeiro.” Computers & Education 49 (4): 1378-1386.

Ferraro, Mathilde, Francesca Bria and Oriana Persico. n.d. “Synergies between Pontos de Cultura and Ecosystems.” Paper presented as part of the Digital Ecosystems initiative of the European Union (http://www.digital-ecosystems.org). http://66.102.1.104/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:B7a3ggtJhr0J:www.digital-ecosystems.org/book/pdf/4.6.pdf+brazil+digital+media+youth, Accessed December 9, 2008.

Fotenos, Saori and Rohatgi, Deepti . 2007. “Amplifying Youth Voices in the Developing World.” New Directions for Youth Development 2007? (116): 117-126.

Franco, Jorge Fereira and Roseli do Deus Lopez. 2005. “Converging Interactive Media, Arts and Culture at Basic Education as Support for Enhancing Individuals’ literacy.”

Geraci, John and Lisa Chen. 2007. Meet the Global Net Generation. Paper from the New Paradigm Learning Corporation.
http://www.newtmn.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/meet_the_global_net_generation.pdf

Jorente, Maria José Vicentini. 2008. “Digital Inclusion Initiatives in Brazil: Improving Education and Information Seeking Behavior through Government-Academic Partnerships.” Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology 34 (3): p30-33.

Kenny, Jack. 2005. “Open Revolution.” Times Educational Supplement 11/4/2005 Issue 4659, Special section p31-31.

Kuner J. and Vosloo. 2007. “Mobile Storytelling and Video Sharing for Inter-Cultural Communication.” http://ebusiness.tc.msu.edu/cct2007/files/kuner.pdf, Accessed January 25, 2009.

Lange, Patricia G. and Mizuko Ito. Forthcoming. Creative Production. In Ito, et. al’s Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press. Pre-release copy at http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/book-creativeproduction, Accessed March 3, 2009.

Lessig, Lawrence. 2005. The People Own Ideas! Technology Review 108 (6): 46-53.

Lima, Clarisse and Scott Brown. 2007. “ICT for Development: Are Brazilian Students Well Prepared to Become Global Citizens?” Educational Media International 44 (2): 141-153.

Litto, F. M. 2006. “Learning with technology in Brazil: a study in contrasts and conquests.” Advanced Technology for Learning 3(2): 62-8.

Lopes, Roberta. 2006. Summary of 2nd survey on technology use. http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/7523/1/, Accessed December 12, 2008.

Lucena, M. 2002. “EduKBr Portal: an Environment Concerned with Quality of Information in the Brazilian World-Wide Web.” In G. Richards (Ed.) Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2002 (pp. 2654-2655). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Lucena, M. 2001. “An Educational Portal Oriented to the Development of Dynamic Learning Communities on the Internet in Brazil: The EduKBr Portal.” In C. Montgomerie & J. Viteli (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2001 (pp. 1174-1175). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Red Orbit. 2005. Brazil Has Become a Trailblazer in Computer Use. September 25, 2005. Knight Ridder Washington Bureau http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/250691/brazil_has_become_a_trailblazer_in_computer_use/, Accessed January 15, 2009.

Schwartz, Gilson. 2008. “Digital Emancipation and Local Development in Brazil.” Paper presented at Media@LSE Fifth Anniversary Conference September 2008. http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/Conference/, Accessed March 3, 2009.

SIG-III. 2007. Social Media and the Internet in Brazil. September 19, 2007. http://www.neasist.org/icisc/blog/?p=36, Accessed March 3, 2009.

Sorj, Bernardo and Julie Remold (2005) “Numerical Fracture and Education in Brazil: Inside and Outside the School.” Education et Societes 1: 75-89.

Wizards of Oz. 2006. Brazil: The Free Culture Nation. September 16, 2006. http://www.wizards-of-os.org/programm/panels/authorship_amp_culture/brazil_the_free_culture_nation.html, Accessed February 10, 2009.

Boit Tatá, Carnaval 2009, Rio
Orkut Rio de Janeiro. Photo by URBefotos. http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbefotos/3303037834/ (see also Goes’ Global Voices Blog)

The growth in internet use in Brazil has been tremendous. Whereas in 2000 only 2.9 per cent of the Brazilian population could be considered internet users, by 2006 this number jumped to 67,510,400 Internet users in December 2008, or 35.2 per cent of the population (ITU 2008). A recent study of internet practices in Brazil by comScore suggests that 85 percent of Brazilians age 15 and older who accessed the internet from home or work computers in September 2008 visited a social networking site. This represented a 76 percent increase compared to September 2007 (comScore 2008). Today, I focus upon the Brazilian internet, exploring the growth in use and the influence of the social network sites, blogging and the internet broadly throughout Brazilian society.

The Brazilian Internet, A Brief History
In contrast to the United States where it often feels as if the possibilities of civic engagement and public participation are only beginning to be imagined, one of the unique features of the Brazilian internet is the extent to which it realized the possibilities of the internet for activism. Much of this framing can be attributed to the role of AlterNex, one of Brazil’s first internet providers.  Created by an NGO and one of the key centers for research on contemporary social and political issues in Brazil (IBASE), AlterNex began exploring ways to link NGOs in Brazil with their international counterparts. To this end, AlterNex also played a fundamental role in hosting the proceedings and networking local and transnational activists involved in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the 1993 Human Rights Conference in Vienna, a Population and Development Conference hosted in Cairo in 1994 and other key events (Albernaz 2002, McCann 2008). A subset of AlterNex members (including Carlos Afonso) created the Network of Information for the Third Sector, or Rede de Informacoes para o Terceiro Setor (RITS), to expanded its work to the web in the late 1990s (McCann 2008; Venn 1999). As McCann notes, “many of the NGOs participating in RITS offered Web access to residents of poor communities before “digital inclusion” was a term of political currency” (136). As I will discuss in more detail in the blog post on New Media Production, such efforts to connect and encourage participation in civic issues has continued in the work of Brazil’s many telecenters as well as the community groups created through social network and blogging sites.

Orkut
If there is one word that is almost synonymous with the internet in Brazil, it’s Orkut (LINK). With over 40 million Brazilian account holders on the site (Fragoso 2006, McCann 2008), recent estimates suggest that more than three-quarters of those who use Orkut list Brazil as their country of residence; Portuguese is also the dominant language on the site (Red Orbit 2008). Indeed, when the Brazilian government threatened to initiate a legal suit against the company to grant the government access and monitor some of the less desirable community activities (e.g. sex tourism), Google resisted, but eventually came to an agreement in 2006 with the Brazilian authorities in an effort to stay embedded within the Brazilian market. While Google did not give the government access to its offsite servers, the company promised to enhance their efforts to monitor and control Orkut’s content (McCann 2008:133). In addition, August of 2008 California-based Google made the decision to establish an office in Belo Horizonte, Brazil solely devoted to the management of Orkut.

Launched in 2004 by Google (the name of the site comes from its creator, Turkish developer Orkut Büyükkökten), the site encourages members to post pictures of themselves, link to other users or websites, trade photos, audio and video files in their “scrapbook”. While Orkut’s initial uptake can be attributed to its early arrival in Brazil (Facebook and MySpace arrived later), part of Orkut’s appeal is its strong community facility that structures interaction and conversation (the site is organized into five categories: “Home”, “Profile”, “Scrapbook”, “Friends” and “Communities”) (Recuero 2005).  Millions of communities exist and are as diverse as Brazilians themselves—local neighborhood groups and football teams, fan communities around football, music, films and notable people as well as more esoteric topics represent just a few of the communities Brazilians inhabit on Orkut. Recuero’s (2005) analysis of social capital in Orkut argues that the way Brazilians use the site to become popular and develop reputation typically undermines traditional hierarchies and methods of evaluation. Bryan McCann similarly contends that part of the success of Orkut revolves around Brazilian’s penchant for the creation of communities and networks which enable extensive discussions that, in content, often challenge the existing social and cultural structure of Brazilian society. Suely Fragoso (2006) suggests in her study of the site, for this reason Orkut has become an intercultural contact zone where Brazilians, Americans and other nationalities engage in extensive debate about current events and other topics. Through her exploration the ways in which Portuguese and English are selectively used in interactions on the site, Fragoso contends that the ways in which Brazilians use Orkut reflects a particularly Brazilian disposition to the practice (and salience) of sociality on the internet (see also Nafus, et. al. 2007).

The Brazilian Blogosphere
While Brazilians affinity for Orkut often dominates discussions of internet use in Brazil, blogging also is also popular. Data from ComScore report from December 2007, shows that Blogger.com alone was accessed by more than 6 million unique Brazilian visitors and Recuero (2008) notes that as of September 2007, over 9 million users (many of whom are youth) access and read blogs. This represents 46 per cent of Internet active users in Brazil. 

Like the communities in Orkut, blogs are varied in topic in scope. With this said, participation in the Braziliian blogosphere often revolves around political and popular culture and blurs the line between social connection and information sharing. For example, O Globo, a newspaper in Brazil, developed a place where residents could anonymously report crimes, both petty and larger in scope. The site was so successful that the paper created a related crime map that enabled residents and officials to identify problem areas (McCann 2008). Citizen journalists are also incorporated in O Globo’s Eu-Reporter site http://oglobo.globo.com/participe/ where images and brief summaries of pollution and other trouble areas are featured (SIG-III 2007). Overmundo http://www.overmundo.com.br/home/, a site founded in 2006 to enable the circulation of information about Brazilian culture, also has become an important space for Brazilians due to its unique system of review and ranking, its desire to subvert existing practices of dissemination (e.g. press relations and advertising agencies) as well as its encouragement of culture (and popular culture) outside of the traditional centers of cultural production, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Noteably, Overmundo uses a Creative Commons license.

Whereas Overmundo and O Globo’s sites are more closely structured by an organization, more flexible open-ended sites are also being adapted in interesting ways.  For example, Recuero’s (2005, 2008b) study of the appropriation of Fotolog, a photo-blogging site where people can upload and comment on digital photos to share with friends and others, looks at the intersection of information and communication in Brazilian’s engagement with a variety of internet practices. Based on two years of research, Recuero’s emphasizes the creation of carefully crafted digital identity, which includes a photoshopped image and a unique nickname, as well as the creation of groups for conversation. She further notes that for many Brazilians the purpose of participation revolves around the sociality posting photos enables . By contrast, Recuero and Zago’s (Forthcoming) study of the Twittersphere suggests “that Twitter is most used as an informational tool in Brazil, where values such as reputation, visibility, popularity, knowledge and information access are more important for users than social values such as social support.” In other words, whereas Brazilians subsume the informational dimensions of sharing (such as to inform others about crimes and social injustices) on sites such as Fotolog in the name of reinforcing social connections, participation on sites like Twitter (and even Overmundo) are driven by a desire to exchange information and the expansion of social networks (Recuero 2008a).

Conclusions
The internet in Brazil, particularly sites such as Orkut, Twitter, Overmundo and Fotolog, has clearly been transformative. It has expanded the way social capital is understood and practiced (Recuero (forthcoming, 2008a) as well as how Brazilians establish and maintain relationships. Bryan McCann (2008) makes the case in his recent book that that Brazilian’s use of the internet has resulted in the formation of the “Orkut Rule” wherein Brazilian’s develop “subcultural niches and crosscultural networks in ways that defy traditional hierarchies and the existing social canon” (McCann 2008:131). McCann further notes that transformative effects of the Orkut Rule and the subversion of traditional flows of information and communication are often mitigated by the ways in which the Brazilian government utilized key stakeholders known for their ability to shape public opinion rather than fund people directly (“The Petrobras Rule”, fn2) as well as the viral practice of making references wherein the people who become stars or famous become so via the “viral” recommendations of family and friends (“Virtual Pistolão Rule”). For McCann, the internet, and the emergence of the Orkut Rule, has helped to flatten social hierachies and, in turn, the ways in which culture is produced and reproduced in Brazil.

While these characteristics are clearly evident in the structure of sites like Overmundo and the use of social network sites like Orkut, it is also clear that we are only beginning to understand the everyday dimensions of internet usage in Brazil. As outlined in the introduction, there have been many efforts at the top-down level of the government as well as at the grassroots level to facilitate digital inclusion. Yet, it remains unclear whose internet we may be talking about as well as the extent to which such participation have truly transformed the well-entrenched hierarchies and inequalities in Brazil. Indeed, in their experimental class ethnography of Second Life in Brazil, Fragoso, et. al. (2008) note that the connection speed and other issues associated with access and the ‘digital divide’ negatively impacts many Brazilian’s ability to participate in such immersive environments. In the next blog post, I continue to explore these issues through a review of new media production activities and the digital inclusion movement.

Fn1: Recuero maintains her own blogging site in Portuguese: http://pontomidia.com.br/raquel/ on Social Media.
Fn2: Although I am unable to discuss this at length, McCann (2008) bases his concept of Petrobas rule on the dominance of Petrobras Holding in determining what is culturally valuable through its large investments in cultural programs. In 2006, Petrobras invested $100 million to cultural programs and sites like Overmundo were initiated through an initial grant from Petrobras.

References:
Albernaz, Ami. 2002 The Internet in Brazil: From Digital Divide to Democracy? New York University. http://www.aaplac.org/library/AlbernazAmi03.pdf, Accessed January 12, 2009.

comScore. 2008. Eighty Five Percent of Brazilian Internet Users Visited a Social Networking Site in September 2008. November 19, 2008. http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2592.

Fragoso, Suely, et. al. 2008. Learning to Research in Second Life: 3D MUVEs as meta-research fields. International Journal of Education and Development Using ICT 4(2)

Fragoso, Suely. 2006. WTF a Crazy Brazilian Invasion. In F. Sudweeks & H. Hrachovec (Eds.), Proceedings of CATaC 2006, pp. 255-274. Murdoch, Australia: Murdoch University.
Galperin, Hernán, and Judith Mariscal. 2006. Digital Poverty: Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives (REDIS-DIRSI, Lima, Peru)
content licensed under creative commons, available on-line in English at http://www.dirsi.net/espanol/files/DIRSI_BOOK-ENG.pdf, Accessed November 30, 2008.

Góes, Paula. 2008. The Greatest Street Party on Earth: The Brazilian Carnival Global Voices February 28, 2009, http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/28/the-greatest-street-party-on-earth-the-brazilian-carnival/, Accessed March 1, 2009

Martini, Paula. 2008. Social Network Platforms in Brazil: The Videolog Case. Apr 24th, 2008 http://icommons.org/articles/social-network-platforms-in-brazil-the-videolog-case, Accessed March 11, 2009.

Martini, Paula. 2008. Web 2.0 in Brazil: The Overmundo Case. December 20, 2007. http://icommons.org/articles/web-20-in-brazil-the-overmundo-case, Accessed March 11, 2009.

McCann, Bryan. 2008. The Throes of Democracy: Brazil Since 1989. London: Zed Books.

Nafus, Dawn, Rogerio Paula and Ken Anderson. 2007. Abstract 2.0 If We Are All Shouting, Is There Anyone Left To Listen? Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings Volume 2007. Issue 1. October 2007: 66 – 77.

Recuero, Raquel. 2005. O Capital Social e as Redes Sociais na Internet.
In: XIV COMPÓS, 2005, Niterói. Anais da XIV Compós,

Recuero, Raquel.2008a Information Flows and Social Capital in
Weblogs: A Case Study in the Brazilian Blogosphere. In: ACM
Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, 2008, Pittsburg. Proceedings
of Hypertext. http://pontomidia.com.br/raquel/ht08fp009recuerofinal.pdf, Accessed February 10, 2009.

Recuero, Raquel. 2008b Appropriations of Fotolog as Social Network
Site: a Brazilian Case Study. In: Internet Research Conference
9.0. Copenhagen. Proceedings of IR 9.0, 2008. http://pontomidia.com.br/raquel/aoir2007.pdf, Accessed February 10, 2009.

Recuero, Raquel. 2005. Um estudo do capital social gerado a partir das Redes Sociais no Orkut e nos Weblogs. Trabalho apresentado no GT de Tecnologias da Comunicacao e da Informacao da COMPOS 2005, em Niteroi/RJ.

Recuero, Raquel and Gabriela Zago Forthcoming. Who do you follow: Social Capital Appropriation in the Brazilian “Twittersphere”. [Preview copy graciously provided by author(s)]

Red Orbit. 2008. Brazil has become a trailblazer in computer use. http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/250691/brazil_has_become_a_trailblazer_in_computer_use/, Accessed December 15, 2008.

SIG-III. 2007. Social Media and the Internet in Brazil. September 19, 2007. http://www.neasist.org/icisc/blog/?p=36

United Nations. 2008. Brazil: Summary Statistics. http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crname=Brazil, Accessed December 2, 2008.

Venn, Karri Munn. 1999 Case Study: IBASE/AlterNex (Brazil). Commons Group Articles. http://www.commons.ca/articles/fulltext.shtml?x=430, Accessed January 28, 2009.

Photo entitled Bateria Campeã, Published under a CC license by André Cherri

On February 20, 2009 millions of Brazilians began gathering throughout the country to celebrate carnaval, a four-day event that occurs each year in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday [fn1]. Known throughout the world for its colorful costumes, energetic music and dance competitions, Brazilians took to the streets of the nation’s mega centers of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Salvador as well as the smaller towns and cities which constitute much of Brazil’s interior. As the festivities commenced, images of outrageous and humorous costumes and scenes from school and street parades began making their way from the mobile phones and digital cameras of Brazilians (and foreign tourists) to Flickr, Fotolog and Orkut profiles (for examples, see Góes 2008). The viral spread of Brazilian carnaval within and outside of Brazil reflects the ease with which Brazilians have merged one of the most important cultural festivals with new media. In this introduction, I will provide a short overview of the new media landscape in Brazil, with particular attention to the social, economic, policy and telecommunications infrastructures that shape everyday practice.

Imagining and Enacting Free Culture
With the most internet users, cable TV subscribers and cell phones in Latin America, even an initial foray into Brazil’s new media landscape reveals how important national policies have become in the lives of Brazilians. What some supporters and critics have termed a leftist, techno-utopian approach to national development, the Brazilian government deregulated its telecommunications sector and encourages full competition in all areas. It also continues to be at the forefront of debates surrounding copyright and intellectual property in realms ranging from music and pharmaceuticals to the taxation on imported goods and proprietary software (McCann 2008).  Under the leadership of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003) and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has been particularly receptive to a range of ‘edge’ practices, such as Open Source, Creative Commons and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. A testament to the country’s bold approach to the ownership and use of culture, media and technology, Brazil was first country in the world to require open source products from the research institutes and organizations who received government funding for the purposes of software development (Benson 2005, McCann 2008).

The value attributed to open source platforms and other dimensions of “free culture” are closely intertwined with the government’s desire to address the nation’s vast inequities. According to the Department for International Development (United Kingdom), Brazil represents one of the most unequal countries in the world. Ten per cent of the population possess around 48 per cent of Brazil’s national income, and 20 per cent of the poorest members of Brazilian society only have access to 2.5 per cent of the national income. In other words, over 40 million Brazilians live on less than $US 2 per day (DfID suggests that 20 million are living on less than $US 1 per day, see DfID’s Development Challenge Document, DfID 2008). The contours of inequality in Brazil correspond with a complex configuration of race, gender, class and geography. The vast majority of Brazilians are of mixed heritage; this mixture, or creolization, includes descendants of Portuguese colonialists, former Africans slaves and indigenous Amerindians. In addition, Brazil possesses the largest communities of Italian and Japanese living outside of Italy and Japan, respectively. There is also a substantial population of immigrants from Germany and the Middle East. While events such as carnaval celebrate the nation’s rich cultural diversity, the Brazilian populations living in the North – Brazilians of (largely) African descent in the Northeast regions such as Bahia, and Amerindians in the isolated Northwestern regions – continue to live in some of the poorest conditions in the country; living conditions tend to improve in the southern regions of the country. In addition to the ethnic and regional inequities, class plays an important role in the geography of poverty in Brazil. According to the World Bank, there were 192 million people living in Brazil in 2006. Approximately 85 per cent of this population lives in an urban center, the most populous being São Paulo (around 11 million) and Rio de Janeiro (just over 7 million). Salvador, Brasília (the national capital), Fortaleza and Belo Horizonte all have populations between 2 and 3 million (Holston 1989). As centers for finance, petrol, service and culture, many of the nation’s wealthiest citizens who live in guarded compounds and high-rise apartment buildings in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Yet, a significant portion of the population also live in favelas, informal settlements or slums on the hills and outskirts of town that, while roughly proximate to the availability of work and other resources, are characterized by cramped, crowded living conditions and are not formally recognized by the Brazilian state (See Holston and Caldiera 2005, Holston 2008). Without the income to access private schooling and other outlets, many occupants and their families live in favelas for generations.

New Media, Technology and Digital Inclusion
The Brazilian government’s support of culture, education, new media and technology reflects the broader concern with social justice and the potential of new media and technology to bridge the social and digital divides prevalent throughout Brazilian society. Alongside investing in the training of Brazil’s middle and elite classes in national universities to work in biomedical, technology and petrol centers, the government has strongly supported efforts towards digital inclusion among the poorest segments of society. In 2006, the Brazilian government instigated a national computer-for-all program designed to make available minimum configuration desktop and notebook models with free/open-source software. Many of Brazil’s working poor were enticed by this relatively affordable program for a computer that could be paid in 24 installments of 50 to 60 Reais, or less than $US 20 per month. Whereas in 2005 only 16 per cent of Brazil’s population owned a computer (ITU 2008), by 2006 2.2 million Brazilians, primarily from the middle and lower-middle classes, acquired their first computer. According to the 2nd Survey on the Use of Information Technology and Communications in Brazil conducted by the Center for Information and Management of Ponto BR (a non-profit organization established to implement the decisions of the Internet Managing Committee) close to 20 per cent of the population own a computer at home (Lopes 2006).

Like computer ownership, the number of households with internet access via modem and landlines lingered at 14.5 per cent in 2006 (Lopes 2006); broadband internet access was even scarcer at 3.54 per cent (ITU 2008). In 2007, 20.54 inhabitants per hundred had fixed phone lines (ITU 2008); the price basket for mobile telephone service cost about $US 26.20/month, while it is about $US 15.60 for a residential fixed line and $US 10.10 for internet services (Cellular-News 2008). According to the Brazilian Institute of Information on Science and Technology, general access to the internet expanded by 39 per cent in 2006, thanks to an increase in the number of digital inclusion points (DIPs). DIPs are public places, set up by institutions ranging from the Brazilian government to private companies to NGOs, where people can access computers and the internet. In the São Paulo metropolitan area alone, over 21 million inhabitants have access to 4000 DIPs. In addition to increasing the accessibility to computers and DIPs, the country’s top three fixed-line telephone companies - Telefónica of Spain; Tele Norte Leste Participações, or Telemar; and Brasil Telecom - agreed to provide a dial-up Internet connection to participants for 7.50 Reais, or less than $US 3, a rate which, according to Benson (2005), could enable approximately 15 hours of surfing online. As I will discuss in greater detail in Friday’s post on New Media Production, the provisioning of access to computers, technology and information through telecenters, home computers and discounted rates on internet access represents an important route for digital inclusion and democratization.

Mobile phones have also opened up opportunities for digital inclusion. As of September 2008, 90.64 per cent of the population was covered by mobile signal and the mobile phone penetration rate was 73.2 per cent as of September 2008, which translates into 140.79 mobile phone subscribers. 81.1 per cent of subscribers take advantage of pre-paid services. Vivo, a company controlled by Portugal Telecom and Telefónica (one of the three largest telecom conglomerates in the world), accounts for 42.28 million mobile connections, followed by Claro and TIM with each about 35 million connections. GSM is most dominant technological standard, accounting for about 86.6 percent of mobile connections. Vivo is the sole CDMA provider and the 3G market is dominated by Motorola, Nokia and LG (Cellular-News 2008). While it is unlikely that the most disenfranchished Brazilians have gained full access to the expensive phones and plans associated with mobile internet, next week I will outline in the blog post on mobile phones the extent to which mobile phones have become transformational devices in facilitating connectivity as well as avenues for employment for poor residents living in favelas and other, more isolated areas where, before the arrival of the mobile phone, people lived without access to permanent or reliable forms of communication.

The Possibilities of New Media
While inequality continues to influence, and be reproduced through, the uptake of new media and technology in Brazil, there are also tremendous possibilities being piqued by the integration of mobile phones, computers, video games and the internet at all levels of Brazilian society as well as practices which challenge our conceptions of what is possible in and through new media. A testament to the innovation and potential of Brazil, Brazil is the first of four countries who Goldman Sachs termed “BRIC” countries (“Brazil”, “Russia”, “India” and “China”), or “emerging economies” that have the potential to become economic powerhouses by 2050. In Brazil’s case, the rich and varied natural resources present in the form of petrol and plants in the Amazon as well as an established financial and service culture are viewed as part of the infrastructure for this growth. With an official literacy rate of 93.2 per cent among youth (and 89 per cent overall literacy, see World Bank 2008)[ii], Brazil also possesses one of the fastest growing youth segments throughout the world. Since 1980 the youth population has grown by 22 per cent; 47 per cent of Brazil’s current population is under the age of 25 (Geraci and Chen 2007, using figures from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population division). Like other countries with large youth demographic (under the age of 25), unemployment remains a key issue. 18.1 per cent of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed and close to 23 per cent of Brazilian women in this age group are unemployed (United Nations Millenium Development Indicators 2008). Many of the Brazilian government’s social justice agendas are designed to enhance and support the infrastructure and the training of its’ diverse and polarized population.

Over the next three weeks I will be focusing upon Brazilian’s use of new media by attending to the dynamic relationship between practice and the technological, bureaucratic and social infrastructures that shape everyday usage, drawing connections between Brazilian’s new media practices and the spirit of play, creativity and resistance characteristic of carnaval and other dimensions of Brazil’s new media culture. I will begin on Wednesday with a discussion of internet practices. The following week will discuss new media production online and in educational contexts and gaming. During the final week I will focus upon the mobile telephony landscape in Brazil. As with the blogs on India, Korea and China, I look forward to your thoughts and feedback.

Endnotes:
i. “Carnaval” is the Portuguese spelling of Carnival.
ii. The gross primary, secondary and tertiary school enrollment hovers between 88 to 90 per cent (World Bank 2008).

References:

Benson, Todd (2005) Brazil: Free Software’s Biggest and Best Friend. New York Times 29 May 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/technology/29computer.html, Accessed January 20, 2009.

Cellular-News. 2008. Brazil 2008 Customer Numbers. Cellular-News October 22, 2008. http://www.cellular-news.com/story/34268.php, Accessed December 5, 2008.

United Nations Millenium Development Indicators, July 2008 Data. http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mdg/Data.aspx, Accessed January 20, 2009.

Geraci, John and Lisa Chen (2007) Meet the Global Net Generation. Paper from the New Paradigm Learning Corporation.
http://www.newtmn.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/meet_the_global_net_generation.pdf, Accessed February 5, 2009.

Góes, Paula. 2008. The Greatest Street Party on Earth: The Brazilian Carnival Global Voices February 28, 2009, http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/02/28/the-greatest-street-party-on-earth-the-brazilian-carnival/, Accessed March 1, 2009

Holston, James. 2008. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Holston, James. 1989. The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasília. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Holston, James and Teresa P. R. Caldeira. 2005. State and urban space in Brazil: from modernist planning to democratic interventions. In Global Anthropology: Technology, Governmentality, Ethics, 393-416. Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier, editors. London: Blackwell.

International Telecommunications Union. 2008. ICT Indicator Database http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/DisplayCountry.aspx?countryId=27, Accessed March 5, 2009.

McCann, Bryan. 2008. The Throes of Democracy: Brazil Since 1989. London: Zed Books.

World Bank. 2008. World Bank Data and Statistics. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20535285~menu
PK:1192694~pagePK:64133150~piPK:64133175~theSitePK:239419,00.html, Accessed February 27, 2009.