Media and Social Change

Guest Author: Raquel Recuero

Brazil is one of the leading countries in Internet growth in South America and has the largest online audience in Latin America. Recent data show that over 45% of the country’s 190 million habitants have used the Internet, 90% of them to communicate with others. Comscore recently pointed out that Brazil has about 45 million users using social network sites, the majority of them on Orkut (71,9% reach), Facebook (40,8% reach) and Twitter (21,8% reach). According to their data, Brazilians are more involved with social network sites than the average global user. In fact, Internet growth in Brazil was strongly driven by social network sites usage, especially by Orkut, whose popularity played a very important part in partially surpassing the digital divide in the country.

Orkut was the first social network site to grow strongly in Brazil after its launch in 2004. In the beginning, it grew more among higher classes and people who already had experience with computers. As it became more popular it also reached lower classes that didn’t own computers, but used the social network site from cybercafes, schools and public internet access places. Orkut was appropriated as both identity and a social tool. As an identity tool, people use the site to narrate their lives through their profiles, carefully created to reflect their “latest” self. Thus users chose pictures, communities and information as ways to show who they were to their friends and friends of their friends. As a social tool, people used Orkut to keep track of their friends and other people. Orkut became a huge “big brother” where everyone could watch everyone else’s lives.

However, Orkut’s growth created prejudice against its usage. Generally, because of its social appropriation, the majority of people regarded Orkut as a “waste of time”. Work places started to block it, followed by educational institutions and public places. Nonetheless, it didn’t stop the social network site from growing and becoming a national phenomenon. It didn’t just grow among the classes who did have internet access, it also grew among lower classes, creating a new interest and influencing Internet adoption in Brazil.  Its popularity was so strong people used to say “if you are not in Orkut then you don’t exist”.

But Orkut was not only about sociability. As it grew, more and more stories about its usage in schools and as an educational tool became common. Even when most schools and universities would forbid its access, Orkut was still an important tool for sharing information. For example, there were several communities about the Brazilian poet Cecilia Meirelles, whose work is out of print due to a judicial discussion about its rights. Cecilia Meirelles has a very important work focused on children and these communities keep it alive (see examples here and here). Orkut has also been the place where many young Brazilians are creating new writing practices such as the writing of web novels. These novels are collectively written through the participation of both the writer and the community and are based on ideas about their TV show idols (such as Rebelde) or book characters they love (more here).

Orkut’s rise also created a strong debate about online privacy, cyberbullying and crimes on the Internet in Brazil. Even though it is still, to this date, the most used social network site in the country, maybe driven by these new concerns some Brazilians started migrating to Facebook.

Facebook is now the second most used social network site in the country, although it still lags far behind Orkut. It started growing more strongly during the last two years, associated with the growth of its apps, especially the games. While Facebook is more popular among higher classes and older users, it is also growing among other publics. Facebook’s networks appear to be more closed than Orkut’s, and its users more selective among whom they will add as friends.

Twitter is the third most used social network site, but has been the most important channel for changing information paths in Brazil. Through Twitter, Brazilians have organized themselves in several protests and activities. Some are funny, such as #calabocagalvao, where people complained about the popular TV sports presenter Galvao Bueno, others are more serious, such as the #Meganão that conclaimed people to make a statement against a project that aimed to regulate Internet in the country.

Because Brazilians are using social network tools so strongly, this is leading to social changes in everyday life, politics, education and other fields. The emergence of online social networks has changed the way information circulates within the country, creating more awareness, actions and change. Last year’s presidential election, for example, was the first one to use social media platforms and to create a more dialogical interaction between candidates and the public. For the first time, Brazilians are discussing elections, laws and the congress work and creating movements for or against them in a more global way. Twitter played an important part in these developments. Some researchers suggest that these elections were a key motivation behind the growth of Internet participation in the country. Because all presidential candidates had Twitter, and some had also profiles on Facebook and Orkut, social media was actively being used both by the public and the candidates.

Social media also become a way to monitor and share information about candidates. “Eleitor 2010” (Voters 2010) was a participatory project where citizens could report electoral foul play during the 2010 elections.  The project received more than 1285 allegations about candidates, where both participants and other users colloborated and shared information. Most of this information was shared through Twitter and then spread to other media platforms, such as Facebook and Orkut.

Social media has also played a part in social and digital inclusion, allowing citizens to talk about their realities and their communities. One key example is the “Communities’ Voice” website. It was created by a young student, Rene Santos, who originally used Twitter (@VozDaComunidade) to share information about his community in the slum Complexo do Alemão in Rio de Janeiro. During 2010 events, when the police and the traffic were at war in the streets, he used Twitter to share information about what was happening. He was the only inside source of the conflict and reached more than 50 thousand followers, becoming an instant celebrity. Based on this experience, Rene gathered other users to also talk about their communities in Rio and created the portal to share news and information.

Yet there is still a lot to learn. Although many people still associate social media and social network sites with leisure, there is no doubt that their influence within Brazilian society has grown steadily.