Header photo by Alan Santos/PR

by Nicolo Zingales

When it comes to COVID 19 deaths, Brazil is the second hardest hit country in the entire world (reaching almost 130.000 at the time of writing). This may be surprising to those who remember that, when the new Corona virus made its way to Brazil, after having caused thousands of deaths in other countries such as China and Italy, there was a widely shared belief that the warm temperatures in the country would prevent its spread. Perhaps this bolstered the confidence of the country´s President Jair Bolsonaro in minimizing the importance of the virus, criticizing the “oversized” concern for its destructive power and attaching economic motives (mainly linked to oil prices) behind that exaggeration. What was more puzzling however is that the President maintained a negationist approach despite the steady increase in the numbers of victims, and in direct clash with the instructions given by health authorities, state governors and even his own Health Minister. On March 24th, Bolsonaro gave a national address on television, where he made clear the key tenets of his strategy in fighting the pandemic: first, a preoccupation for the economic consequences, demonstrated by his admonition that “life goes on, and jobs must be maintained”. Second, a forceful rejection of the social isolation imposed by state and municipal authorities combined with an exhortation to “vertical” isolation, meaning an isolation of those segments of the population with higher risk of death or of developing serious conditions with Covid-19. In support of that strategy, he suggested that for most people the virus would be no more than a “gripezinha” (small flu), and that Brazilians have somehow acquired an immunity to disease by “diving into sewers” (a reference to the fact that in certain areas of Brazil people have to cope with sewage water pouring onto the streets). Third and last, an investment into demonstrating the efficacy against the virus of hydroxychloroquine, a medicine produced in Brazil and widely used to fight malaria, lúpus (SLE) and arthritis, not without some significant side-effects.

While one could oppose this strategy on ideological grounds, a different criticism concerns the way in which it was reached: marking a stark contrast with the position advocated by scientific authorities, and devoid of any evidential justification. The first telling sign of that was the dismissal on 16 April of Health Minister Mandetta, due to a divergence of views over the necessity of social isolation measures. This was followed not even a month later by the resignation of his replacement, Nelson Teich, appointed by Bolsonaro in the hope to find a better ally on the economy-focused strategy. Although Teich did not provide any reasons for the resignation, it is worth noting that it came the day after he learned in a press conference that the President had issued a decree (without consulting the Ministry) classifying gyms, beauty salons and barbers as “essential services” that cannot be interrupted by state and municipal authorities. In later declarations, Teich explained that the government´s request to the Federal Council of Medicine to allow the prescription of chloroquine for mild cases of Covid-19 had a weight in its resignation, stressing that the country´s health care budget is too small to be used for things that don´t work. The epilogue of this saga was the official government guidelines for wider use of chloroquine in mild cases, published when the Health Ministry came under the control (on an interim, but still lasting basis) of Eduardo Pazuello, an active-duty army general. The decision to authorize the use of hydroxychloroquine was reached unilaterally, despite the existence of scientific studies on the medicine finding “no beneficial effect against the disease”, and without revealing any results from the studies announced by the President in his television address in March. Especially considering the delicate nature of this decision (which is liable to impact lives of thousands of people), it was logical to expect that the evidential basis for any decision would be produced and made available for public oversight.

Another tension with the scientific community arose on June 5th, when the Health Ministry removed from its portal key statistics about the Coronavirus, explaining that it was doubting the accuracy of the numbers due to the prevalence of “sub-notifications”: it was alleged that numbers were manipulated by States and municipalities in order to receive emergency aid, and that as a result, new reports would be limited the numbers of deaths occurred (rather than notified) on each day. However, despite the stated purpose, the changes involved a significant curtailment of published data: in the new version made available as of June 7th, one could only see daily contagions, deaths and recoveries without reference to the accumulation of such number in the past, or the breakdown of those per state and municipality, or the records of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, (another useful indicator). In this version, numbers could no longer be downloaded, which created obstacles to further analysis. All this motivated the Sustainability Network, the Communist Party of Brazil and the Socialism and Freedom Party to launch a constitutionality challenge against the new policy, resulting in a judicial order to the health ministry to revert to the original configuration. Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes reminded in his decision that the Brazilian Constitution enshrined the principle of publicity as one of the main vectors for the public administration, giving it absolute priority in the administration´s management and granting full access to information to the entire society. The same principle had been invoked by the judge in another ruling against the government in March, setting aside a decree that created an exception in the law of access to information to the 20 day-response deadline. due to the pandemic. According to the ruling, the decree “ha[d] not established exceptional and concrete situations that would [legitimately] impede access to information”, rather simply turning the principle of publicity and transparency into an exception. In both cases, the Judge spoke clearly: the pandemic cannot be used as an excuse to lower transparency standards, which are indispensable (arguably even more so during the pandemic, given the wide range of public measures adopted) to hold public power accountable.

A third and last example of negationism and rupture with evidence-based policy was the case of “O Brasil não pode parar”, a mediatic campaign encouraging autonomous workers to continue working despite the imposition of social isolation measures. The video of the campaign was published on the official Instagram page of the Special Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency and shared by several persons close to the President (including his son, Rio de Janeiro´s senator Flavio Bolsonaro), but its dissemination was immediately enjoined by a court in Rio de Janeiro. The injunction followed a complaint lodged by the Federal Public Minister to prevent the spread from official government accounts of this campaign, as well as other information against social isolation that is not strictly grounded on scientific evidence. Interestingly, when these facts were brought to light by the Press, the Secretariat denied the existence of the campaign, despite its wide circulation and the public availability of screenshots of its publication by the Secretariat just three days prior. While this nation-wide campaign was withdrawn, however, Bolsonaro remains able to use his own channel (TV Bolsonaro) to broadcast content of choice to his audience through an app. According to an article published by the Intercept on 15 June, TV Bolsonaro is the main channel in the app “Mano”, produced by IP.TV, who is the contractor of the state governments of São Paulo, Paraná, Amazonas e Pará for the provision of long-distance education to primary and secondary schools during the pandemic. The Intercept documented that the livestreaming app requires users to give broad permissions to the collection of personal data (for instance, access to the photo album), and suggests that this disproportionate data collection may have been the economic value justifying IP.TV´s provision of such services free of charge to the state governments. Unfortunately, no further information is available on these contracts between state governments and IP.TV, and it is not clear what safeguards were included to protect the personal data of millions of students and professors. This lack of clarity over data processing has been a reality for the entire duration of the pandemic in Brazil: the country is still awaiting the entry into force of a comprehensive data protection law and the formation of a data protection authority, both of which have been repeatedly postponed, but are now bound to happen in the next few days. While public-private partnerships could in principle help the country to deliver to citizens the services and information they need, the inadequacy of the applicable data protection framework (at least at the time these contracts were signed) is such that these partnerships must be looked at with suspicion. It is not a coincidence that it was the revelation of the terms of the partnership between telecom operators and the Agency for Statistics for the measurement of unemployment that led to a successful constitutional challenge, on grounds of the insufficiency of the applicable safeguards This Supreme Court ruling was a good reminder of the promises of transparency and open data, highlighted by Judge de Moraes in the two above-mentioned cases, which simultaneously allow direct citizen engagement with evidence and to keep public power in check. And perhaps with even more important consequences in the context of the pandemic, as more transparency and evidence-based policies could arguably have prevented the normalization of agglomerations we are seeing today across the country.

About the author

Nicolo Zingales is Professor of Information Law and Regulation, and coordinator of the E-commerce research group at FGV law school in Rio de Janeiro. He is also a founding member of MyData Global, an organization promoting empowerment by improving the effectiveness of the right to informational self-determination; and a coordinator of its Brazilian Hub, which recently co-hosted a workshop on Data Governance At A Time of Pandemics: Charting A Way Forward For Latin America.

Por Marta Espuny Contreras*

Las respuestas colectivas como redes de apoyo mutuo y solidaridad y, en concreto, las cajas de resistencia (despensas solidarias, fondos de emergencia, etc.) se han multiplicado a raíz de la pandemia del COVID-19. Se trata de un tipo de activismo digital, unas prácticas de resistencia centradas en el apoyo colectivo y la solidaridad comunal que se han venido desarrollando especialmente en redes sociales.

En este texto se plantea una reflexión crítica sobre los conflictos y contradicciones que derivan del uso de redes centralizadas -como Instagram o Facebook- para la creación y coordinación de redes autónomas, basándonos en las siguientes preguntas: ¿qué posibilidades autónomas de resistencia se activan dentro de estas plataformas?, ¿qué consiguen estos movimientos al hacer uso de las redes sociales? Hablaremos de la fragmentación que sufre el activismo en redes sociales, y cómo las redes estudiadas superan esa centralización e individualización mediante la localidad, es decir, anteponiendo el sentimiento de pertenencia y responsabilidad mutua que diseña un acuerpamiento y una lucha desde la identidad. Esta localidad, adelantamos, necesita ser reconfigurada pues ya no se lee con relación a un espacio compartido sino a una identidad común.

Vulnerabilidad social, exclusión y redes comunitarias: Instagram como objeto político

La actual pandemia ha puesto en evidencia las numerosas deficiencias de nuestras no tan bien consolidadas democracias europeas. Las redes de apoyo mutuo surgían como única alternativa válida de supervivencia para los sectores de la sociedad denominados por Sousa Santos como no-existentes; personas y poblaciones que, por su procedencia, falta de regulación laboral, identidad de género, profesión -o todo lo anterior-, permanecen invisibles en los márgenes y no cuentan con el reconocimiento necesario para beneficiarse de las medidas gubernamentales. Una precariedad que aumenta con la imposibilidad de trabajar durante el periodo de confinamiento (o, en algunos casos como los temporeros de Lleida, incluso trabajando).

Es en este contexto el que surge la necesidad para estos colectivos de repensar sus mecanismos de supervivencia, de crear redes de solidaridad, cuidados colectivos y apoyo mutuo, frente a los paradigmas individualistas occidentales. Estas acciones se presentan como la única alternativa simbólica y material de los colectivos de no-existentes. La construcción autónoma de estos espacios-red es una forma disidente de establecer relaciones de apoyo en las que sus integrantes pasan de ser víctimas -de un sistema, unas jerarquías, una pandemia, de la imposibilidad de adquirir lo mínimo para vivir- a agentes activos, apropiándose del centro de acción y decisión. Cuando estas redes de colaboración se expanden hacia las plataformas digitales, encontramos muchos perfiles que se caracterizan por su gran conciencia identitaria en relación con las exclusiones y procesos de discriminación nombrados con anterioridad.

Desde la Teoría de Medios (STS) las plataformas se entienden como espacios de mediación, que responden a intereses empresariales y económicos -capitalización de datos, captación de la atención-, por lo que no son elementos neutros, sino que están al servicio del sistema. Es en esta mediación y la estandarización -influencia del diseño de la plataforma- donde reside la clave a la hora de entender las posibilidades de inter(acción) que ofrecen estas plataformas a los diferentes actores que la transitan.

Los discursos políticos y activistas se expanden hacia lo digital, donde se fragmentan y estandarizan por la mediación de estas plataformas, quedando reducidos a imágenes, slogans o pequeños textos a pie de foto. En un contexto dominado por la economía de la atención, se publican consignas agresivas y provocadoras, con una aparentemente alta carga política, buscando generar un mayor impacto y destacar entre la sobresaturación de información.

Sin embargo, estos mensajes no pueden presentarse de manera articulada, puesto que las redes sociales no ofrecen la posibilidad de extender los discursos, no dan lugar a que se dibuje un hilo conductor de las reivindicaciones.

Transformando sus narrativas al formato Instagram, las luchas políticas quedan condicionadas por la búsqueda del impacto y la atención. De esta lógica surge la mediada visibilidad, que produce que ciertos perfiles cuenten con mayor visibilidad, mientras que otros perfiles queden aislados en sus comunidades de afines. Esta invisibilización de determinados perfiles hace de Instagram una herramienta de censura y no de amplificación. Las redes y plataformas de comunicación tecnológicas suponen, en este sentido, una amenaza para la emancipación de movimientos autónomos. Entonces, retomando nuestra pregunta inicial, cabe cuestionarse ¿qué posibilidades autónomas de resistencia se activan dentro de estas plataformas?

Para indagar en las posibilidades autónomas que se movilizan dentro de estas plataformas, hemos analizado tres hashtags: #CajaResistencia, #TejidoComunitario y #SolidaridadComunitaria, desde los cuales se ha realizado un muestreo en cadena hasta identificar un total de 40 perfiles (principio de saturación discursiva). Perfiles gestionados por personas o colectivos migrantes o que practiquen un trabajo no regulado (venta ambulante, trabajo sexual, recogida de fruta, etc.), establecidos en el Estado Español, y que publicaron llamados a participar en cajas de resistencia durante el confinamiento por COVID-19 en España.

Activismo y localidad

Los efectos de la estructura, los límites e intereses de las plataformas recaen sobre sus interacciones. Es desde este punto que estos colectivos tienen la necesidad de utilizar las affordances de estos medios para realizar apropiaciones concretas que les permitan la acción. Con relación a las cajas de resistencia hemos percibido cómo estos colectivos, consciente o inconscientemente, ponen el foco en la localidad y en los cuidados. Es decir, superan la fragmentación, centralización e individualización de las redes gracias a que anteponen la localidad, a que se priorizan los lazos comunitarios que hacen de nexo entre diferentes colectividades.

Desde esta perspectiva, resulta necesaria una reconfiguración del término localidad, que pasa de lo físico a lo simbólico, de lo material a lo identitario. Ya no implica necesariamente que se comparta un mismo espacio, sino más bien que se lea a la otra persona como parte de tu grupo. Entendiendo el grupo como las personas tienen un mismo origen, que combaten dentro de las mismas luchas (como antirracismo, disidencia de género, anticolonialismo, transfeminismo, etc.), o que comparten objetivos o prioridades comunes, líneas o espacios de debate, proyectos, etc.

Al publicar (e interesarse por) mensajes y proclamas sobre la misma lucha, perfiles que podrían no llegarse a conectar nunca, debido a las limitaciones espaciotemporales, empiezan a interrelacionarse dentro de los espacios digitales. En la siguiente imagen vemos un ejemplo de cómo la conciencia identitaria resulta una base, un nexo de localidad que, en el caso de la ayuda mutua, tienen claras referencias a las comunidades indígenas que tanta experiencia tienen en este tipo de redes. Reclamos como “tejido comunitario desde los márgenes” o “abrazamos la solidaridad comunitaria para la vida digna” representan esa búsqueda de solidaridad, de acuerpamiento entre iguales. Se subraya la solidaridad como respuesta de contingencia para hacer frente al capitalismo.

Por otro lado, es fundamental la capacidad de las redes sociales para escalar esa localidad, para trascender las barreras locales y nacionales y construir redes de solidaridad globales. Esto se da gracias a la atemporalidad presente en las redes sociales, entendida como el fenómeno que facilita la comunicación simultánea desde diferentes zonas geográficas (lo que Castells denominó timeless time), que hace de las redes un espacio compartido más allá de las limitaciones y barreras de la comunicación presencial. Partiendo de lo local (punto de partida necesario para la construcción de redes disidentes), estos espacios permiten la creación de redes translocales y transnacionales que son, en definitiva, tecnologías preservación colectiva de la vida.

Subrayar el carácter revolucionario de la generación de redes de apoyo mutuo. La mera construcción y subsistencia de estas cajas de resistencia en redes sociales supone una revolución en sí misma, puesto que demuestra que es posible la existencia desde, por y para los márgenes. En esta época lo vemos como una medida urgente, de contingencia frente a la falta de recursos. Sin embargo, la autogestión de tejidos comunitarios podría extrapolarse como solución frente a la centralización capitalista. Con respecto a proyectos de emancipación y autonomía, tenemos mucho que aprender de los paradigmas y estructuras creadas desde las diásporas, de sus tecnologías ancestrales de supervivencia. Se trata de un trabajo de descolonización para sustituir los paradigmas individualistas por proyectos locales y autónomos que busquen una emancipación colectiva, que rompan con la relación de codependencia generada a través de los años con los estados y el capital.

 

* Marta Espuny es una persona en deconstrucción, cuyos intereses se centran en el análisis social y político de/en espacios digitales -digital humanist/researcher-. Trabaja desde una mirada crítica en la intersección entre ciencia y tecnología, platform politics y cambio social. Twitter: @martaespuny Linkedin: MARTA ESPUNY 

By Gargi Sharma with contributions from Aaron Martin
Tilburg University

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped how social, economic, and political power is created, exerted, and extended through technology. Through case studies from around the world, a new book from the Global Data Justice project analyzes the ways in which technologies of monitoring infections, information, and behavior have been applied and justified during the emergency, what their side effects have been, and what kinds of resistance they have met.

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept the world, with countries imposing states of emergency one after another. Lacking protective material resources, sufficient human capacity for contact tracing, or evidenced-based understanding of the disease, policymakers are turning to technology ‘solutions’ for a miracle. The global technology sector has stepped in to seize this opportunity and in doing so has sought to influence policy decisions to the benefit of their businesses. Many governments, too, have welcomed Big Tech interventions and are putting in place digital contact tracing strategies among other data and technology-driven interventions. In the early stages of the pandemic, the Global Data Justice project based at the Tilburg Institute of Law, Technology, and Society in the Netherlands, decided to look deeper into these developments.

We invited a range of contributors and commentators to document the first wave of technology-based interventions as they were unfolding in their respective geographies and to reflect on the implications of these developments for both the theory and practice of data justice (Taylor, 2017). We wanted to better understand the reality on the ground – seeing as nearly all international travel and site visits were suspended indefinitely thus impeding our empirical research – and examine how governments and the private sector are utilizing technology to respond to the pandemic situation, both alongside – and in some cases in the absence of – a healthcare response. To this end, we compiled and edited 37 essays (plus an introduction) into an open-access book, which was published by Meatspace Press last week.

We initiated this collection while observing that the COVID-19 pandemic had amplified a nascent epidemiological turn in digital surveillance with at least two dimensions, namely, function creep and market-making. In the first, governments have repurposed existing technologies for public health surveillance. What was previously done in development and humanitarian contexts has now become a part of every resident’s life. In the second, technology companies – which were well-positioned to deploy such technologies – have entered the public health space and now influence political decisions, with minimal citizen and civil society involvement and input. This has turned out to be what Tamar Sharon calls illegitimate access to the spheres of health and medicine in her newly published paper on Apple and Google’s role in the pandemic response (Sharon, 2020).

As the contributors interrogated the particular technologies and structures that determine their application, some came out in favor of these interventions, while others didn’t. The diverse contributions show that this was determined by trust (or the lack thereof) in governments [Mollicchi, Peppin, Safak, and Walker; Veale; Edwards], cultural notions of community care and responsibility [Eenmaa-Dimitrieva, Tikk, and Kerttunen; Sandvik], and the prior scope of intervention by Big Tech [Johns; Wylie], among other factors. We also noted how such (enhanced) digital surveillance can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities [Duarte; Keys; Kaurin; Cohen]. We learned that technology can be a useful tool to address this public health crisis, but is secondary to testing, tracing, and isolating (Taylor, 2020). It is important to note the variation and context of these responses in that each informs us about the common features of a notion of global data justice.

The commentary by Sean McDonald and the contribution from Brazil, for example, uncover a rise in disaster (techno-)capitalism with governments and large technology companies experimenting in this state of exception [McDonald; Evangelista and Firmino]. The Philippine government has also introduced technology-based interventions — without proper checks and purpose limitations — raising concerns that the data could possibly be used in the 2022 elections [Lucero]. The pandemic has been used as cover by authoritarian governments like Hungary and The Philippines, with the latter using libel laws to create a chilling effect on journalistic freedom [Böröcz]. While the inequities in the healthcare system, in addition to the ‘infodemic’, are exacerbating the vulnerability of North American Indigenous communities, tribal governments have been responsive to the crisis by maintaining datasets of both enrolled and unenrolled tribal citizens, which they then exchange with health advocates [Duarte]. In Uganda, the tax authority has repurposed a system originally set up to track goods under customs control from point of loading to a final destination within Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, to monitor truck drivers for COVID-19, thus creating a digital surveillance system with minimal data safeguards in place [Mwesigwa]. The Ghanaian government has used the crisis situation to pass an emergency law, which does not explicitly define a public emergency, lacks a sunset clause and, in essence, lays the groundwork for a state surveillance structure that will go beyond the current pandemic [Oduro-Marfo].

Since the Meatspace collection captures the beginning stages of the pandemic, it does not include the connections and overlaps between recent social justice and liberation movements around the world. We aim to dive deeper and unpack unexplored aspects of technological governance during the COVID-19 experience over the coming months as the state of the pandemic and policy responses evolve at both national and regional levels, albeit unevenly [Daly]. This collection also opens the door for further multi-disciplinary and intersectional analysis of how technology-based interventions are influencing the governance of populaces during and after the pandemic and how that will shape our social and political structures. Critical scholars will also want to better understand how resistance to digital surveillance (cf. Martin et al., 2009) and other technology-led interventions is emerging in pandemic contexts, as well as the growing number of technology failures that have been documented within the COVID-19 response.

The Global Data Justice team worked on this project with funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement n° 757247).

 

About the authors:

Gargi Sharma is a junior researcher at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT), Tilburg University, The Netherlands, where she works on the ERC Global Data Justice project.

Aaron Martin is a postdoctoral researcher on the Global Data Justice project at TILT.

 

Author: Andrea Medrado

This post, published in two parts (FIND PART ONE HERE), reports on a panel session which took place at the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) annual conference, among four initiatives involved with community media responses to COVID-19. Members of the four initiatives, based in India, Brazil, Mexico and Spain, have discussed the role of community media in crisis response, arriving at common themes that this post illustrates.

 

Acknowledging, praising, but not romanticising resilience

“Resilience: the ability of a substance to return to its usual shape after being bent, stretched, or pressed.” This definition can be found in the Cambridge dictionary. Here, when we think about resilience from a Global South perspective, it is important to acknowledge it and praise it, but not romanticise it. In Brazil, people (and particularly women) who are resilient, facing all kinds all hardships in life without losing their spirit are called “guerreira(o)s” (or warriors). But I will never forget the words of a female favela activist who once told me: you know what? Do I need to be “guerreira” all the time? This is just exhausting. No one deserves having to fight all the time.

I see a strong link with the work that is being done by initiatives such as Ideosync, Frente de Mobilização, Manos a la Obra, and ReMC. These community-based efforts are at the heart of places that are the most affected by natural disasters and health crises. Their work helps inform people (in a context of mis and disinformation), creates networks of solidarity (in times of social anxiety) and literally saves thousands of lives (in times of death). So, yes, of course, they do seem like warriors in the positive sense of the word. And, yet, despite all these qualities, community media still receive little recognition. No licenses, no subsidies, no support. And what is worse, the people involved in community media are often harassed, threatened, and silenced.

But community media in the Global South(s) keep resisting. They keep speaking up and speaking out against marginalisation and injustice. But are States, authorities, and other institutions of power willing to listen? Here, I evoke Tanja Dreher’s ideas on “politics of listening”. To quote her, “in order to adequately understand and contribute to struggles for media change, media research needs to attend to the politics of ‘listening’ in addition to the dynamics of ‘speaking up’. Crucially, attention to listening shifts the focus and responsibility for change from marginalised voices and on to the conventions, institutions and privileges which shape who and what can be heard in media (2010, p. 85). This implies that the difficulties that community media face, particularly in times of crises, have less to do with an inability to speak up on the part of those oppressed, and more to do with a refusal to listen on the part of State Governments and media regulation bodies, amongst other powerful actors (Dreher, 2010, p. 98). When facing crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, how could community media initiatives be simply ignored in official plans, for instance? Sadly, this is precisely what is happening in many places of the world, as we learned in the four presentations. Would this indicate that the COVID-19 pandemics has made necropolitics – the politics of life and death, with States deciding who may live or who must die – more apparent? I pose this question as a provocation but I will need to leave it aside in this long blog post (it could become another post on its own) because I want to return to South-to-South talking and listening. Whilst Governments fail to listen and cater for the needs of their communities, we have a lot to learn from other experiences in the Global South.

Lessons learned from India, Brazil. Mexico, and Spain:

• In India, civil society has advocated for many years that community radio should become an intrinsic part of disaster management plans but these appeals often fell on deaf ears. It was only after the Uttarakhand flash floods in 2015, and the civil society action that followed it, that there was some recognition of the important role played by community radio in natural disasters. After the Nepal Gorkha earthquake, also in 2015, the Uttarakhand State became the first Indian state to have a community radio policy for disaster risk reduction. Lessons learned from this process came in useful during the Kerala floods in 2018 when the Government was encouraged to form partnerships with community radios.

• In Brazil, and specially in Rio de Janeiro, police violence has been endemic for decades. In 2019, the Rio de Janeiro Police killed 1,810 people (BBC News Latin America, 2020). This makes a shocking average of five killings per day. Young black men from favela communities are usually the victims and children, such as Ágatha (8 – killed in 2019), and, as young as Rennan (3 – killed in 2006) have also been killed. Even during the pandemic, as Gizele Martins noted, police operations have killed black favela youth in different favela areas. Recently, pressure from civil society, mothers of victims, and activists led to an important victory: In July 2020, Brazil’s Supreme Court decided to suspend police operations in the favelas. This was a way to mitigate the suffering of favela communities who were dying from COVID-19, hunger, and from being shot at, as Gizele put it. But there is still a long way to go in terms of protecting human rights in the favelas.

• In Mexico, Renán spoke about the importance of Indigenous languages rescue programmes, which have had a remarkable impact in terms of quantity and quality of audience responses. Additionally, Manos a la Obra Comunicación Comunitaria Antiviral manage to create a “broadcasting corridor”, connecting community radios in different areas and they strengthened these ties when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted.

• Finally, in Spain, in A Coruña, the Government of the Galicia Region tried to shut down a community radio station. As response, the station— called CUAC FM— took the Government to court and won the case. The judge ruled in their favour, indicating the importance for community media initiatives to become legal entities and judicialise issues if necessary.

Speaking of the pandemic context in the Global South(s), the presentations also addressed how a “digital illusion” is being created, with those who are already marginalised being re-marginalised. At the same time, because all things have multiple facets, there have been enriching opportunities for dialogue and exchange for activists and community media practitioners in different regions of the Global South. This second aspect, of course, does not counterbalance the first but, in any case,

Let’s keep talking to each other
Until they listen
Conversations matter
Black lives matter

 

Acknowledgments

The Panel Dealing with Crises, Community Communication and Alternative Media: Experiences from the Global South was organized by IAMCR’s Community Communication and Alternative Media (CAM) Section. The leaders of the section acted as curators for the four initiatives (Vinod Pavarala – India, Andrea Medrado – Brazil, Claudia Magallanes Blanco – Mexico, and Alejandro Barranquero – Spain). Claudia Magallanes Blanco moderated the session and her institution, Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla, provided support for editing the video. To Claudia, Vinod, Alejandro, and all members of the section, thank you!

About the author:

Andrea Medrado is a Tenured Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Communication and at the Postgraduate Programme in Media and Everyday life of Federal Fluminense University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She worked as the Co-Investigator for the eVoices Network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC UK), analysing different uses of digital technologies and art-ivism (art + activism) to fight marginalisation in countries of the Global South. Recently, she was elected Vice President of IAMCR, and she also acted as the Co-Chair of the Community Communication and Alternative Media Section (CAM) for four years (2016-2020). She earned a Ph.D. from the University the Westminster and worked as a Posdoctoral Researcher at Royal Holloway University of London. Her research interests include mediactivism; community and alternative media; South-to-South communication flows; media and favelas; ethnographic approaches; and social media, visibility, and human rights.

Author: Andrea Medrado

This post, published in two parts, reports on a panel session which took place at the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) annual conference, among four initiatives involved with community media responses to COVID-19. Members of the four initiatives, based in India, Brazil, Mexico and Spain, have discussed the role of community media in crisis response, arriving at common themes that this post illustrates.

 

“Conversa puxa conversa” (Chatting starts a conversation, Brazilian proverb)

 

In Portuguese, the word “conversa” refers to both “chatting” as in “jogar conversa fora” (small talk) and having a serious conversation. At first thought, the proverb seems obvious. However, it demonstrates the extent to which establishing a meaningful conversation depends on a willingness to do so as well as on skills to initiate an initial unpretentious chat. As it can be implied in the English words “chat” and “conversation”, there are different levels and styles of conversation. However, what matters the most is that we need conversation more than ever in the current context of health, social, and political crises in many parts of the world.

This post is about a conversation between countries and people in the Global South— India, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain. In these different contexts, three key characteristics are displayed by community media in times of crisis: agility, adaptability, and resilience. As part of one online session for this year’s online IAMCR Conference, we asked four groups to tell us about how they deal with crisis situations, including the COVID-19 pandemic. We also asked them to talk to each other about it. Names of the four organisations, their main activities and panel participants are listed as an appendix to this post.

Dealing with Crises, Community Communication and Alternative Media: Experiences from the Global South

Our goal was to share experiences, echo voices and reflect views from Global South(s) perspective(s). Here, the “South” is not a simple geographic location. One can probably infer this from our inclusion of (the European) Spain as one of the countries addressed in the discussion. Rather, the “South” features as a metaphor for human suffering under capitalism. And what a time to talk about suffering. COVID-19 is taking its toll on the world, causing deaths, illnesses, and economic dispossession. Brazil, India, and Mexico are respectively the second, third, and sixth countries in the world with the highest number of confirmed cases as of the time of writing. Spain was also among the countries most impacted by COVID-19, reaching close to 10,000 new cases in a single day at the outbreak’s peak.

The four experiences from different Global Souths echo what we already know: ‘community media’ derive from a focus on the ‘communal’. This is a point worth stressing, particularly in times of loss, despair, and uncertainty. Community media not only know well the community they address but they also allow this community to speak for itself. All speakers – Ramakrishnan and Venu; Gizele; Renán; Alejandro and Isabel – reveal the multiple ways in which community media are better equipped (than mainstream media, for instance) to address their audience’s needs because of the shared relevance that community issues, given that they are all part of the same community. However, something else is special about community media: its resilience. Ramakrishnan Nagarajan was the first panelist to speak about community resilience in relation to natural disasters. Throughout the following three presentations, the theme of resilience emerged again and again and again. Community media are hyperlocal, language-specific, reliable. All these traits acquire added importance in times of crisis. And perhaps here we should include another important characteristic.

Community media are resilient media.
(examples provided by Ramakrishnan, Gizele, Renán, and Alejandro)

The 2015 earthquake in Nepal reduced large proportions of the country’s rural areas to rubble. The destruction was significant with few structures left standing. Community radios were among the most affected as the damage to their infrastructure buildings was almost total in some places. Yet, it was community radio, not the telecom infrastructure that managed to come back on air first, using small field-based tents and studios, setting up whatever little infrastructure they had. Community radios often work in already resource poor settings and, yet, they were able to get back into action almost immediately to start broadcasting. In Nepal, these community radios were the first to gather stories from survivors almost immediately and to coordinate rescue and relief efforts.

In Brazil, favela residents find themselves in a critical situation, which is, of course, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to a combination of overcrowded spaces and poverty, social distancing becomes almost impossible, and going out to work represents an extreme necessity for many. Yet, the Governments (City, State, Federal) have provided little support for the economically vulnerable populations. In this context, favela communities have demonstrated a high level of resilience and self-organisation, taking matters into their own hands to contain the pandemic. Frente de Mobilização da Maré, based in a large network of favelas in the North Zone of Rio, illustrates this. Many of the members are community media practitioners. They have used their communication skills to devise campaigns and to gather volunteers to assist the most impoverished families. Their work includes creating a local database that people can sign up to and receive food and medicine donations. These volunteers are risking their own lives, going out to streets to help their neighbours, and doing a job that should be done by the authorities.

In Mexico, community radio practitioners have demonstrated resilience in terms of not giving up when their communication strategies do not seem to work. Renán speaks about how they started to lose their audiences during the pandemic because their model of programming became overly formal in its mission to inform people. People were emotionally exhausted, so they wanted to hear more personal experiences. In order to cater for these feelings, they decided to change the style of programming, adopting a more horizontal communication flow.

Finally, resilience is also a key element in the work that is done by ReMC in Spain. As it happens in other Global South contexts, they face major obstacles, such as little money and a lot of red tape. Yet, community radios in different regions of Spain are managing to work together, each from their own homes and “micro-spaces” to produce a weekly programmed called “The Other Coronavirus”. Indeed, community media resiliently show us that violence, inequality and marginalisation are among the many “other” pandemics that we must fight.

PART TWO HERE

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Panel participants:

1. Ideosync Media Combine, India

• A capacity-building advocacy organisation;
• Worked on media development and communication for social change across India and South Asia over the last two decades;
• Research with and on community radio as well as training and capacity building for the sector;
• Presentation focused on the role of community radio in disaster risk reduction in India and South Asia;
• Presenters: Ramakrishnan Nagarajan and Venu Arora
• Website: http://www.ideosyncmedia.org
• E-mail: info [@] ideosynmedia.org

2. Frente de Mobilização da Maré, Brazil

• Started by a group of favela residents, activists, and community media practitioners;
• Gathered financial donations and supplies from citizens and companies;
• Organised teams of volunteers to sign up residents who needed to receive assistance during the pandemic, such as food baskets and cleaning products;
• Devised a communication plan using different types of media, such as street banners, loudspeakers on cars, WhatsApp groups, and social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) to inform and offer assistance to favela residents.
• Presenter: Gizele Martins;
• Website: https://www.frentemare.com
• E-mail: frentemare [@] gmail.com

3. Manos a la Obra Comunicación Comunitaria Antiviral, Mexico

• Driven by the need to produce content based on detecting communication needs in the communities;
• Started with a programme that aimed to create a citizen’s agenda through interviews with community leaders, doctors, teachers;
• Created a “broadcasting corridor”, connecting community radios in different areas strengthened these ties when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted;
• Presenter: Renán Martínez Casas
• Facebook: @PerioSismos
• E-mail: renanaquiles [@] hotmail.com

4. ReMC (Red de Medios Comunitarios), Spain

• A union of associations (a legal entity) that brings together community media from different regions of Spain;
• Despite its location in (Southern) Europe, Spain differs from other European countries in terms of communication policies. There is no independent regulatory body for the audiovisual sector and there are no public policies for the promotion of community media;
• Were able to coordinate efforts and produce a joint weekly radio programme called “El Otro Coronavirus” (The Other Coronavirus).
• Presenters: Alejandro Blanco and Isabel Lema Blanco
• Website: https://medioscomunitarios.net
• E-mail: coordinacion [@] medioscomunitarios.net

Members of IAMCR can watch the video here after logging in:

https://iamcr.org/node/13484

Non-members can watch it on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/fIi6Rg4fgO0

 

About the author:

Andrea Medrado is a Tenured Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Communication and at the Postgraduate Programme in Media and Everyday life of Federal Fluminense University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She worked as the Co-Investigator for the eVoices Network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC UK), analysing different uses of digital technologies and art-ivism (art + activism) to fight marginalisation in countries of the Global South. Recently, she was elected Vice President of IAMCR, and she also acted as the Co-Chair of the Community Communication and Alternative Media Section (CAM) for four years (2016-2020). She earned a Ph.D. from the University the Westminster and worked as a Posdoctoral Researcher at Royal Holloway University of London. Her research interests include mediactivism; community and alternative media; South-to-South communication flows; media and favelas; ethnographic approaches; and social media, visibility, and human rights.