A new folk on TV. Brazilian cultural industry at its most recent challenges.

Abstract

The 1990s created a new scenario for the television networks, agents that structure the Brazilian cultural industry. In addition to the technological changes and the increasing offer of other entertainment products that alter the open TV consumer habits, during this period, some socioeconomic processes, which the most meaningful consequence would be the progressive rise of the income level of the lower classes in the country, took place. Bearing in mind the transformations mentioned above, the main goal of this research is an immanent analysis of these lower classes in the telenovelas Avenida Brasil and Cheias de chame, broadcast in 2012 by TV Globo. These telenovelas aimed to portray the everyday life and the specificities of the lower classes way of life. In 2012, the TV network announced the search for the lower classes viewers as one of its main commercial targets. Favouring a theme which for a long time did not get much attention in the Brazilian TV, these telenovelas are also characterized by the use of new forms of interacting with the audience - especially the Internet and its social networks - in its promotion and in the plot itself. This research is based on Theodor Adorno e Max Horkheimer's concept of "cultural industry", as well as on contemporary interpretations of this problematic, and on the Brazilian literature on television and telenovelas. In addition to the formal and content analysis of these telenovelas, interviews with professionals engaged in these productions will be held along with the research in different newspapers and specialized magazines to exam the different mechanisms of interaction with the viewers, which characterize the production of the contemporary Cultural Industry.