1

Brazilian Favelas in the Media:

A History of Stereotyping

Martim S Silveira
March 2009

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Summary
1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................3
2. CONTEXT...........................................................................................................6
2.1. THE FAVELAS................................................................................................6
2.2. PEOPLE IN THE FAVELAS............................................................................7
2.3. THE ORIGINS OF THE FAVELA....................................................................8
2.4. THE BRAZILIAN MEDIA.................................................................................9
2.5. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE MEDIA AND THE FAVELAS..........10
3. CASE STUDY...................................................................................................11
4. CRITICAL ANALYSIS......................................................................................16
5. CONCLUSION..................................................................................................23

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1. Introduction
Favela is the generic name by which slums and shantytowns are known in Brazil. They
are a national social phenomenon, spread throughout all the biggest urban centers in the
country, inhabited by some of the poorest Brazilian families, and receiving little or no
attention from the State in what concerns infrastructure and basic services.

The term favela itself has a bad connotation. In Brazil, besides indicating the poor
neighborhoods, it is used pejoratively to suggest a run-down place or an unpleasant or
disorganized situation, as the Houaiss Portuguese Language Dictionary defines it
(Houaiss & Villar, 2001). As an extension, the favelas are an easy target for stereotyping,
being linked to poverty, ignorance, sickness, insalubriousness and especially to crime.
This distortion of meaning ends up creating a heavy stigma over its people, who face
double social exclusion: they not only do not enjoy full citizenship, that is, are not
granted access to State services; but also are deemed as marginal, standing apart from
regular society.

It cannot be denied that favelas are areas plagued with daily examples of direct violence,
as it is statistically shown or seen daily in the news. However, the common knowledge
that associates favela residents to criminals fails to differentiate the vast majority of
common citizens living there from those somehow connected to crime. It also fails to see
the links between criminals coming from these areas and the many better-off bosses from
traditional families, who command large, organized criminal groups, and recruit their
soldiers from the lower economic layers of Brazilian society.

Finally and most importantly, this stereotypical view fails to acknowledge that direct
violence in Brazil affects, more than anyone else, the same poor (and especially black and
mulatto) working people who live in the favelas. As observed by a United Nations
Development Programme report, those are the typical crime victims in Brazil (UNPD,
2005).

The distorted ideas used to describe the favelas and its people are not, nevertheless, a
recent phenomenon. They result from a long process of marginalization by the State, by
successive governments and by the wealthier social classes. And, throughout History, one
of the main means for the generation, spread and maintenance of the ideas that associate
the shantytowns to crime has been the countrys press.

By basing its coverage in the mechanisms of what Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick
(2005, 2007) classify as War Journalism that is, a linear coverage that only narrates
events without considering their context; that prioritize official sources, and diminishes
common citizens; that credits violence to an alleged inborn barbarism of those who
commit it; and that can only understand disputes in a dualistic manner, as a fight between
good and evil , the Brazilian media has been helping to perpetuate the stereotypes
about the favelas.

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This essay precisely intends to demonstrate this equation by analyzing the Brazilian press
coverage on the favelas and their people through the Peace Journalism perspective, as
defended by Lynch and McGoldrick (2005, 2007).

To this intent, we will first present the context of favelas in Brazil, showing their
characteristics, describing their residents, and offering a brief historical overview. We will
also take a quick look into the Brazilian media, approaching its historical relation with
the slums. For a more thorough analysis of this relationship, we will take as an example
the coverage of the February 2nd, 2009 violent confrontations in the Paraispolis favela
(the second biggest one in the city of So Paulo).

First, we will seek to highlight the vocabulary used to mention and describe the
inhabitants of this shantytown and to report the confrontations. We will also try to
identify the framings and contradictions of the press coverage. Later on, we will point out
the general lines that guide the present relationship between media and favelas in Brazil,
showing how a biased and unbalanced depiction of the shantytowns contributes to the
maintenance of their negative image, which constitutes a clear example of cultural
violence as proposed by Galtung (1996:2-8).

As a clarification, it is important to mention that we are responsible for the translation to

English of all citations from Brazilian sources found in this essay.

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2. Context
2.1. The Favelas
What formally defines a favela is that the houses in it are built without legal
authorization, which means that its residents have no ownership neither of the building
itself nor of the area it occupies. Informally, though, they are recognized as any set of
humble houses built without planning, and having little or no access to basic public
services such as electricity, tap water or sewing system.

The Favelas vary greatly in size, being formed by some wooden shacks where a few
dozen families live; or by countless blocks of brick houses surrounded by paved streets,
housing up to hundreds of thousands of people. Many are found in an inaccessible
outskirt of a major city, miles away from downtown. Others, in areas where normally no
one else would build, such as hillsides, banks of polluted creeks, swamps or flood areas,
spots around city dumps or the space under bridges.

However, in what constitutes one of Brazils major social paradoxes, favelas can also be
found in the heart of traditional (sometimes top-class) neighborhoods surrounded by
roads with heavy traffic, shops and banks, which provide the area a faade of near
normality. But this faade hides a network of winding alleys where humble wooden, tin
or exposed brick houses are built, and grow vertically for lack of space.

Nowadays, some favelas have minimal basic infrastructure and legal status, receiving the
same benefits of a regular neighborhood, such as street addresses and postal service,

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pavement and health care centers. Paradoxically, it is also possible to find mansions
among the humble houses, mainly because of their owners financial progress and the
legalization of their properties, a measure local governments sometimes try as a way of
social inclusion.

The general picture, nevertheless, is desolating. With the growth of industry and service
sectors in Brazil in the past two decades, there has been an increase in the migration flow
from rural areas to the cities. This movement was not followed by policies to absorb this
population into the labor market, which increased the illegal occupation of new areas
lacking infrastructure, and consequently the appearance of new favelas (Costa Mattos,
2007).

2.2. People in the Favelas

The poorest layers of Brazils population inhabit the shantytowns. Many people are
migrants from the countrys worst-off areas in search of work in the major cities. They
mostly had no access to proper education, and either have no formal jobs or work in jobs
that require no training. Their average income is considerably inferior to those found in
other areas.

In 2007 the Brazilian government was forced to review the official figure of the
inhabitants of the shantytowns due to an error in the statistical model chosen to count
them elevating the figure from 6.4 to 12.3 million people, spread out in 3.2 million
households (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009b). At the same time, the UN has published a study

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that sets the population of Brazilian slums in 52.3 million people in 2005 (UN-Habitat,
2006).

2.3. The Origins of the Favela

Brazilian favelas are a complex phenomenon born as a consequence of many factors
throughout history. In its origins, however, we can find two main reasons: the abolition of
slavery in 1888 (what makes Brazil the last country in the world to have eradicated it);
and the industrial growth of the countrys main cities at the end of the 19 th century,
especially Rio de Janeiro at the time capital of the country (Costa Mattos, 2007).

It is necessary to consider that the abolition of slavery was not as benevolent as it may
sound, since the governmental act that ended it was not followed by measures aiming at
social inclusion or at least offering a decent living to former slaves in its majority
blacks brought from Africa or born under the rule of a plantation farmer. Thus, this huge
population was thrown in the streets, leaving the former slaves on their own, without
legal means to insert themselves into society, get a proper job, earn a dignified living or
be able to buy or build their own dwellings.

This situation was combined with the attraction exerted by the fast-growing industry in
cities such as Rio de Janeiro and So Paulo in the end of the 19 th century. Since these
urban centers did not have the capacity to accommodate new inhabitants, the only
alternative was for them to occupy the outskirts of these cities, what resulted in the

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disorderly growth of favelas, and began their history of abandon and repression by the
authorities.

In the past decades, after the exponential growth of Brazils biggest cities, the favelas
have been absorbed into the formal urban core paving the way to paradoxical pictures
where skyscrapers share the landscape with shacks.

2.4. The Brazilian Media

On the other side of the equation that this essay wishes to analyze we find the Brazilian
media. The biggest names in the country are large-sized, family-run companies that are
not negotiated in the stock market.

The biggest nation-wide communications group is the Globo Network, which runs the
countrys richest and most popular TV channel (TV Globo), a nationally influential
newspaper (O Globo), the Globo radio station, the weekly magazine poca, the popular
web news portal Globo.com, and countless other broadcasting operations in Brazil and
abroad.

The second biggest conglomerate is the Abril Group, owner of a variety of printed
magazines including Veja, the most influential weekly publication. Apart from these there
is also the So Paulo-based Folha Group which owns the biggest daily paper in the
country (Folha de S. Paulo) and its online version (Folha Online); the biggest financial

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newspaper (Valor Econmico); and the biggest web news portal in Brazil (UOL). Directly
competing for the national market is also the Estado Group, which prints the influential
newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo (Associao Nacional de Jornais, 2007).

The communications sector has been facing a severe financial crisis for years now, with
huge debts and bankruptcies. In 2002, a change in the Brazilian Constitution allowed
foreign investors to own up to 30% of media companies. That was forbidden before since
it was considered a strategic sector. Later, arguing that only large amounts of money
would save national media groups from the crisis, preventing them from being sold to
foreign groups (Observatrio da Imprensa, 2003), then newly-elected President Lus
Incio Lula da Silva prepared, in 2004, a R$ 5 billion (approximately US$ 2,5 billion)
line of credit to the sector, without further discussion in parliament. This agreement
created discomfort regarding the medias dependence on the State (Jornal da
Universidade, 2002).

2.5. The Relationship Between the Media and the Favelas

The relationship between the press and slum residents is marked by a long history of
stereotyping. As early as 1909, one of the major newspapers in Rio de Janeiro wrote
about an earlier shantytown in the city:

It is the place where most of the thugs in our land dwell, and precisely
for this reason for being a hideout for people willing to kill for any or
even no reason , they do not have any respect for the Law and the
Police. (Costa Mattos, 2007)

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According to Costa Mattos, the article depicted very well the predisposition of the media
towards slum dwellers. The social perception of urban violence in favelas comes from a
long time ago, as well as the stigma imposed on its inhabitants (2007). Chalhoub
(1996:22) clearly defines the perceptions in Brazil at that time: The poor carry the vices,
vices produce evildoers, evildoers are dangerous to society; connecting both ends in this
chain, we have the notion that the poor are, by definition, dangerous.

Costa Mattos (2007) also observes that the negative representations of the favelas
originated in a campaign developed by Rio de Janeiro media outlets at that time
immersed in the ideals of progress and civilization , with the intent to homogenize
society. According to the press own logic, the favelas inspired views that went from
disorder to savagery[, and] did not fit in the modern and Europeanized city planned by
the dominant classes.

3. Case Study
The same perception about the favelas is still valid in todays press. To observe the
persistence of this stereotypical view, we will analyze the media coverage of a February
2nd, 2009 event in So Paulo where a group of people clashed with the Police inside the
Paraispolis favela the second largest in the city, with a population of 80,000 living in a
0.8 sq km area.

At dusk, protesters blocked an avenue and a few streets around the shantytown with
burning tires, wood planks and rubbish. Police was called to unblock the roads what led

12
to violent clashes. The confrontation lasted a few hours, and ended with the removal of
the barricades and the announcement by the So Paulo State government (which controls
the Police) that hundreds of policemen would be deployed in the area for an
undetermined period, doing ostensive patrolling, in a rather unusual action in the daily
life of the biggest Brazilian city.

The first written reports of the events began in the online versions of the main media
outlets. Relying on sparse details about the situation, apart from those descriptions that
the Police itself would provide, they highlighted from the beginning: residents () have
burned cars, and blocked traffic in the area (Estadao.com.br, 2009a). Mentions of
residents allegedly involved in the riots and of bad traffic conditions could also be
read in other websites, and were reproduced in the printed versions the next day.

Also on the next day reports started to present explanations to the demonstration. There
were many versions: [protesters] are unhappy with the death of a neighbor, who was
said to be a decent person, two policemen [who claimed to own the favela] () could
be the main targets of the protests, the demonstration [could] be related to the change
of the [local Police] commander (O Estado de S. Paulo, 2009a), [the demonstration
was] the reaction of a few punks connected to crime, and ran out of control (Jornal da
Tarde, 2009a). Despite the many versions, the most accepted reason for the February 2 nd
events has been the one provided by the Police: the protests would have been commanded
by the local drug lord as a revenge for the death of another drug dealer and the arrest of
his brother-in-law (O Estado de S. Paulo, 2009a; Veja So Paulo, 2009; Folha de S.

13
Paulo, 2009c). Thus, the Police believed to have reasons to affirm that the protest had
been planned in advance.

In all the reports on the following day, TV channels, newspapers and websites showed
explicit videos and pictures of the confrontations, describing thoroughly the armament
used by both sides in the clashes. A news piece by Folha de S. Paulo described in detail
the strategy used by the Police and the number of policemen, horses and even dogs
employed to march into the slum. The reports would show an increasing number of
people hurt until the number stabilized on four policemen shot, but diverged about the
number of residents harmed some (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009a) mentioned only one,
while others (Veja So Paulo, 2009; O Estado de S. Paulo, 2009b) cited two.

The main focus, however, was directed to the Polices response to the events. With the
headline After the riot Police begins choking in the favela, Folha de S. Paulo, the
biggest Brazilian newspaper, quoted the Public Security State secretary, who promised to
repress new protests, and arrest the culprits. The operation triggered by the Police was
called Saturation, while the protests where frequently referred to as an urban war
(Folha de S. Paulo, 2009f). Besides, it was a unanimous choice to call the operation an
occupation of Paraispolis.

Demonstrators were indiscriminately recognized as residents, whereas a few articles

went further, calling them criminals (Veja So Paulo, 2009). The protests became
rioting, public order disrespect, disorder, acts of violence, moments of horror

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and fear (Veja So Paulo, 2009; Estadao.com.br, 2009a). It was scary, according to a
Veja So Paulo reporter.

But media outlets sought to enrich their coverage with articles that tried to explain and
describe Paraispolis and its people. They mentioned that the slum is located in an
unemployment-plagued area in So Paulo, and provided data that indicated the low rate
of education and low average income in the favela (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009d). Others
preferred to point out that there are run-down pubs, many of them in the shantytown
(Veja So Paulo, 2009).

At the same time, some reports focused on its wealthier neighbors. To remove it
[Paraispolis] from there is impossible. I would like to, but that is not realistic, said one
of them, who classified the protest as traumatizing. Another one said to be favorable to
blocking streets in the rich areas in order to prevent the presence of those who did not
live there. Articles also mentioned that real estate advertisements would digitally erase
the shantytown from the landscape of future residential properties to be built in the area
(Folha de S. Paulo, 2009g).

Throughout the coverage sources of information were primarily members of the Police or
of the Public Security State Secretary. Most of the articles failed to present statements
from Paraispolis dwellers. When they did it, they would quote either the president of the
favela residents association or anonymous people who, they said, preferred not to reveal
their names (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009d, 2009h; Estadao.com.br, 2009a).

15

On the third and fourth days following the clashes, some journalists started mentioning
that the Police could not show progress in their investigation of the reasons for the
occurrence despite the apparent certainty of the initial explanations. Police admits to be
back to zero, highlighted Jornal da Tarde, claiming that the failure was due to the Rule
of Silence shared by the residents. They would refuse to denounce the culprits (Jornal da
Tarde, 2009b).

At the same time reports mentioned that four policemen who were involved in the
shooting of a resident the day before the riots would be moved to other squads. Articles
quoted the lawyer of a few Paraispolis dwellers stating that those agents were a bunch
of killers (Jornal da Tarde, 2009b). They also quoted anonymous sources saying that the
locals complained about the violence of those policemen (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009i;
Folhaonline.com.br, 2009). Reports barely cited the hoax about a missing resident
an honest working man who supposedly had witnessed his neighbors shooting, crime
that would have caused the protests (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009a).

On Saturday, February 7th, the coverage abruptly ended, with the two biggest newspapers
in So Paulo (Folha de S. Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo) failing to present one single
report on the topic. There was no mention at all of the continuing presence of the Police
in Paraispolis, about its residents everyday life under the operation, or about the fact
that Police corruption or abuse of power might be behind the February 2nd events.

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4. Critical Analysis
By observing in detail the case of the protests in Paraispolis, we are able to point out a
few general lines in this journalistic coverage that are not restricted only to the February
2nd protests. On the contrary: these are issues based on the same framing pattern on the
favelas and its people; a pattern that, as pointed out by Costa Mattos (2006), has been
transmitting, reinforcing and perpetuating stereotypes about the shantytowns residents for
over a century. It is a case of cultural violence that ends up comparing the favelas to an
alien territory inside the Brazilian territorial unity, relegating their people to a secondclass citizenship condition.

Among the patterns one can observe in the coverage analyzed here and in the general
attitude of the press towards the favelas are the following topics:

Immediate link between residents, protesters and drug trafficking

Since the beginning, media outlets do not hesitate to headline that residents are
responsible for the protest which, important to mention, is also qualified by countless
adjectives that immediately identify it as a contravention. Even if there has not been a
single arrest or person claiming responsibility for the acts, the origin of the demonstrators
is in the shantytown, according to the logic of the articles.

Even more serious is the confusing quest for an explanation to the occurrence, which
points everywhere, but ends up converging to an official version from the Police: one that

17
says the protests were planned in advance and ordered by a powerful organized criminal
group. By immediately validating Police sources who afterwards ended up
contradicting themselves, admitting to be lost, and investigating even their own members
possible corruption as a cause of the protest , the media created a nefarious
demonstrators-residents-drug dealers connection, and followed it unquestioningly until
the end. It is the same logic behind Brazilians average perception of the shantytowns, not
only in the Paraispolis case, but as a general rule repeated in the press since the 19 th
century (Costa Mattos, 2006).

It is also to be noted that explanations linking the protest to a response by organizedcrime-led thugs to the shooting of a resident invalidated beforehand the protests
legitimacy, because this person was nothing but a thief (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009a; O
Estado de S. Paulo, 2009a; Veja So Paulo, 2009).

Lack of active voice to favelas dwellers

One of the characteristics of favela-related articles is the complete absence or lack of
legitimacy of their residents statements. When quoted, they appear as anonymous
sources or people that give only their first names out of fear of being punished, and
provide confusing, irrelevant or empty affirmations that come in a secondary position in
the reports. What is worse, sometimes the same loose statements are manipulated in the
story to corroborate the official explanation about the facts, as seen in Folha de S. Paulo
(2009a).

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Every rank in the Police and in the government has distinguished space in the articles,
offering statements that make the headlines. The problem in this case, however, is that it
leaves out the people that live the conflict in their skins (Lynch & McGoldrick,
2007:255). And, as Lederach notes, (1997:84) () [these] people are overlooked and
disempowered either because they do not represent official power (), or because they
are written off as biased and too personally affected by the conflict.

Dehumanization of the favelas and their people

Stories presented by the So Paulo press address very few topics: the violence in the
February 2nd confrontations and its connections to crime; the inconvenience of the clashes
to public order and to the richer neighbors; and the authorities response to the events.
Nevertheless, what is rarely observed is the perception of how what happened in
Paraispolis has affected locals lives that is, the human side of the story.

While weaponry, violence, Police strategies and road traffic problems in the area are
described in detail, there are only a couple of lines about the difficulties faced by the
residents during the protests. On that day, however, one of them was shot while waiting
for his son on the roof of his house. Thousands of people had to walk back home because
bus service was disrupted by the companies that run public transportation, who feared
their vehicles would be destroyed in the confrontations. When these people finally got to
the shantytown, Police blocked their passage, while their families, under fire, waited
inside for the clashes to finish.

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On the following days, there have been reports of arbitrary beatings of residents, who
allegedly were being stopped, and searched up to six times on the same day, while the
Police looked in vain for the culprits. All of these are stories of people who lived the
conflicts in their skin those days and possibly in many other times.

All of them were left unheard because there is a tacit supposition that violence is
something normal in the life of a favela that in turn is a nuisance to the normal life of
the city. Conversely, whole articles were dedicated to the traumas of the rich neighbors
who watched the confrontations on TV.

Besides, by not considering at all the possibility of presenting a context for the events
occurred in Paraispolis, the idea the press passes on is that acts of such savagery could
only be caused by barbaric (and thus, inhumane) people. However, Lynch and
McGoldrick remind us that those are essentialist explanations for violence. They come
with a built-in suggestion that the perpetrators are just like that, acting out attitudes and
hatreds that come welling up from within (2005:64, italics in the original).

Focus on gratuitous violence and its justification

As usual, also, the reports did a great job in describing in detail the armament, the
barricades, the fighting, the way people were hurt in the protests, and the ensuing reaction
by the State, many times using Police jargon that is, all the different aspects of violence.
They insisted in bringing up the number of persons harmed, and after the counting
stabilizes, they persisted in constantly repeating the information. However, it is possible

20
to note that mentions of the people hurt in the shantytown disappeared from the reports,
while the number of injured policemen made the headlines, such as in Locals fight the
Police in favela, three officers are shot (Folha de S. Paulo, 2009a).

Besides, there was not even an agreement on the number of injured people (Folha talked
about four, while O Estado and Veja named six). Apart from that, they became merely a
figure mentioned on the last sentence. There was no concern to follow up the cases and
the personal histories behind each victim, what would humanize the statistics.

As Lynch and McGoldrick (2005, 2007) note, the attitude of only listening to official
sources legitimates the militaristic, operational solutions that use force as the only
possible and acceptable way to deal with the situation, when it is known that it is a
fallacy. Nonviolent methods are not only possible, they have been applied successfully in
many similar situations, as the work of 54 NGOs in the same Paraispolis shows.

Dualism
The journalistic coverage of the events in Paraispolis is based on a simple division of
the world: the favela versus the regular city; rich versus poor; Police versus bad guys;
order versus riot. It sounds as if the February 2 nd events could be summarized as a
confrontation between the Army of Order against the Army of Crime.

However, in this particular analysis, the parties involved (as the same reports
inadvertently concede) go far beyond demonstrators versus authorities. They involve

21
favela residents, small-time criminals, organized crime organizations (or those who claim
to belong to them), workers, the residents association, city government (responsible for
the infrastructure), State government (responsible for the Police), NGOs, the neighboring
top and middle classes who hire people from Paraispolis, the same top and middle
classes who consume drugs that they buy at the shantytown, the Police that represses, the
Police involved in drug trafficking, etc. When it comes to such multiple social relations,
the picture is that complex.

The problem with this simplistic and essentialist view of violence is that conflicts are
conceptualized as dual, a zero-sum game of two parties. () Defeat, being unthinkable,
each has a ready-made incentive to try harder to win to escalate the conflict (Lynch &
McGoldrick, 2007:258). In this case, no one can expect something other than violence to
happen.

Voice to division
Despite invalidating and ignoring locals statements, the press dedicates whole articles to
the impressions of Paraispolis wealthy neighbors. They are affected by what they call
nuisances, and are scared of the mess.

Articles give voice to those who overtly speak about making Paraispolis invisible or
about removing it. Truth is, however, that the favelas are indirectly inside the traditional
neighborhoods, in all the condos and top class areas, represented by its people, who work

22
in supermarkets, bars and shops, clean houses, attend to clients, park their cars, watch
others properties, drive the buses, and so on.

In this sense, the favelas are not the neighborhoods of the dangerous classes but an
integral part of the daily lives of those who read the Brazilian press. It is personified by
the workers who move the countrys economy, and do those essential jobs that do not
require training. Better-off classes have no one to resort to besides the favelas, or they
would have to do the work themselves.

In the case referred in this essay, press coverage simply died out even though no one had
the slightest clue of what had happened, but insisted in quoting some hypothesis that not
even the Police could confirm. It gave the impression that it did not really matter.

The conclusion is probably summarized in this excerpt: Most importantly now, however,
for [the shantytown] residents and [their] neighbors, is that peace comes back to
Paraispolis, says the report (Veja So Paulo, 2009). That means that everything is back
to normal: people in the favela should take back their jobs as waiters, babysitters,
doormen and house maids, as highlighted in the same article, suffering the miseries of
life as second-class citizens, while their rich neighbors go back to their role as bosses
hoping for no more annoyances. That would be normal life in the favelas. Violence is
just taken for granted. The end.

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5. Conclusion
The February 2nd, 2009 violent clashes in Paraispolis constitute an example of the daily
life in Brazilian slums. Similarly, the So Paulo medias coverage of the events represents
the relationship between the press, the favelas, and their inhabitants a relationship one
hundred years old.

One may notice, through the analyses of the framings and the contradictions in the press
coverage presented here, that there is a biased view of the facts, tending to a gross
generalization that qualifies people from the favelas as criminals in any given situation
where order breaks down.

The distorted image of the favelas is explicit in insinuations about its unavoidable
connection to crime; in a lack of proper investigation of the facts, given explanations and
versions of the story; in a lack of attention to the residents views and stories; in the
simplistic, dualistic language that sees only senseless violence in the events, not caring to
investigate contextual causes; in an excessive attention to statements from authorities;
and so on.

It seems that in the medias logic favelas are a thing, a hermetic entity. Thus, we should
not make any distinctions between their thousands of inhabitants, be them workers or not,
young or old, women or men. According to this framing, the favela as an entity always
reacts in the same way when interacting with the external world: with violence,
brutality, and barbarism. Finally, this reasoning appears to sustain that the favelas would

24
have a treacherous character, since they get assistance from the State and the NGOs, and
have the opportunity to make a living working for their wealthier neighbors, but pay back
with violence and crime.

The whole logic in the medias discourse about the favelas configures a perverse
institutionalized mechanism of cultural violence that helps build an image of an inferior
caste of citizens, hostages to the fallacy that crime and poverty are indivisible. In this
way it stigmatizes the people of the favelas as pariahs who, besides structural privations
of education, health care, work and welfare, are culturally transformed into criminals by
the mass media.

Brazil, a country pursuing to strengthen its economy and reach a leading role in the
world, still needs to address this huge social debt, deepened among other reasons by the
stereotyping done by the mass media. Changes in this generalized urban conflict
augmented by structural violence certainly pass through the radical transformation of the
favelas negative image, generated and maintained by the Brazilian press, as this essay
attempted to convey.

Bibliography
Books:
CHALHOUB, Sidney (1996). Cidade Febril: cortios e epidemias na corte imperial.
Companhia das Letras, So Paulo, p. 22.

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COSTA MATTOS, Romulo (2006). A Aldeia do Mal: O Morro da Favela e a
construo social das favelas durante a Primeira Repblica. Unpublished.
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___________________ (2009b). Populao nas favelas dobra aps governo revisar

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Paraispolis sitiada,

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http://www.estadao.com.br/estadaodehoje/20090203/not_imp317328,0.php, visited on
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