![\"Estadao-Contra](\"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Estadao-Contra-Governo-1.png\")
<\/a>“At least 9 states have [protests] events against government; follow [us]”<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>“Protests against Dilma have already begun in 14 states and the Federal District”<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>“Protests against Dilma seize various cities; follow [us]”<\/p><\/div>Unfortunately the media is more interested in an anti-leader discourse than in supporting momentum for real change. As the three headlines (March 13th, 12:30pm) from Brazil\u2019s three largest newspapers show above, the protests have been framed as “against Dilma” or against\u00a0“government”. As far as I can tell, this motivation is not in line with what most Brazilians feel \u2013 that the system must change. The media has impregnated people with the idea that leaders must change, but Brazilians rightly sense that systemic change is needed. They just don\u2019t know how and what. This ignorance is partly formal education, but mainly the result of a media that has failed to educate people. And it has failed to do so largely\u00a0because real change is not in its interest.<\/p>\n
Please understand the interconnected incentives of much of the news media around the world: stable and predictable profits, easy regulation, and the maximization of advertising revenues. Brazil\u2019s media has enjoyed huge revenues as a result of how the political system and state have evolved. Let me explain.<\/p>\n
Brazil has one of the highest candidates-to-seat ratios in the world, which means that candidates collectively spend huge amounts on political advertising. The combination of enormous electoral districts (the states) and\u00a0an open-list electoral system – in which\u00a0party members compete against competing candidates in other parties as well as within\u00a0their own parties\u00a0–\u00a0has resulted in more than 30 parties being represented in Congress. In 2014, an average of 12 candidates competed for each seat in the Lower House of Congress (6100 candidates for 513 seats)<\/a>. The absurdity of a congress\u00a0where\u00a0more than 30 parties are represented almost completely escapes Brazilians, thanks largely to a media that does not engage in any comparative illustrations from around the world. The fragmentation of the congress has served the media well; large economic interests conquer and divide \u2013 easy work\u00a0in Brazil\u2019s divided congress \u2013 which explains why\u00a0Brazil\u2019s broadcasting regulation has gone unreformed since 1968.<\/p>\n Big\u00a0media also benefits from massive state spending on promoting itself and its state-owned-enterprises, of which there are over 140<\/a>. Nightly newscasts of the Jornal Nacional (the most dominant newscast in Latin America) feature ads by the\u00a0Banco do Brasil (Bank of Brazil), Caixa Econ\u00f4mica Federal (a state bank), BNDES (a development bank, larger than the World Bank), and Petrobras, among other state and government interests.<\/p>\n On a final note, Brazil\u2019s news media is not unusual in engaging in an \u2018agency approach\u2019 rather than a \u2018systemic approach\u2019 in assigning blame to an economy and political system gone awry. Individuals are the color of stories, not institutions and their intricate designs. Yet if media outlets are\u00a0to assume an agency\u00a0approach, they\u00a0should at least provide more coverage to proponents of change outside the political system (see, for example)<\/a>. I challenge readers to give me examples of such coverage within the last three years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today, several million people are taking to the streets to protest a corrupt political system and a rent-seeking, bloated state. Let\u2019s make this clear; Dilma is a poor political leader and her governments have precipitated nothing short of an economic fallout. But she is not the problem incarnate. My wife (and son) is at the Read more about Media Against Dilma – Brazilians For Change<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,140],"tags":[13,138,72,141],"class_list":["post-1081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","category-protests","tag-brazil","tag-brazilian","tag-media","tag-protests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1619,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions\/1619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}