Media Power and Democratization in Brazil: TV Globo and the Dilemmas of Political Accountability

In this book, Porto analyzes the role of TV Globo in the democratization of Brazil. TV Globo, one of the world’s largest media conglomerates, has a dominant position in Brazil’s communications landscape. It also exports telenovelas to more than 130 countries and has established joint ventures with transnational media conglomerates. Beginning in the mid-1990s, TV Globo began a process of ＂opening,＂ replacing its authoritarian model of journalism with a more independent reporting style. Representations of Brazil in prime time telenovelas have also shifted. Given this shift, Porto considers some of the following questions:

-What explains these changes in Brazil’s most powerful media company?

-How are they related to processes of political and social democratization?

-How did TV Globo’s opening affect Brazil’s emerging democracy, especially in terms of the quality of political accountability mechanisms?

Porto uses the Brazilian case of TV Globo to analyze the larger links between democratization, civil society mobilization, and media change in transitional societies.

Mauro Porto is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Tulane University.