Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Romance Studies - Latin American Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Bremen, language: English, abstract: Telenovelas, which are also known as novelas, are an integral part of Brazil’s culture. Especially the productions of Brazil’s biggest and most influential television network, Rede Globo (Globo network), are nationally and internationally broadcasted. Thus, novelas have become one of the major sources of worldwide impressions of Brazil (Page 1995: 455). Novelas tend also to have a great impact on their Brazilian audience. Interestingly, Indigenous people are rarely depicted in those programs, or in any other types of television programs for that matter. The subject of this master thesis is in what manner Indigenous people and languages are presented in Brazilian telenovelas, especially “A Muralha”. Several authors were source of inspiration to create this Critical Discourse Analysis, but it must be said that the most important influence was Teun van Dijk’s discourse on racism in Latin America. The first chapter of this master thesis introduces the motivations for this study and gives some general information about the Indigenous peoples and languages of Brazil. The second chapter deals with the Brazilian telenovela as a whole. Not only are its origins and plots explained, but also its socio-cultural impact. The third chapter describes the telenovela A Muralha, which was the subject of the empirical study, in its setup, production and reception by the viewers and critics. In the aforesaid chapter, there is the novela’s plot given as well as a summary of all episodes that were included in the discourse analysis and a short summary about its production and media impact. The fourth chapter focuses on the Critical Discourse Analysis. It is further divided into four subchapters. Design and Procedure of the analysis are explained in the first subchapter. The second subchapter is about how people are represented in the aforesaid telenovela. Thus, it deals with language and identity. The third subchapter issues semiotic choices and issues strategies that are used in the visual communication method of the telenovela. Results of the Critical Discourse Analysis are also included in that chapter. The fifth chapter discusses the depiction of Indigenous peoples and their cultures in Brazilian television by taking the example of A Muralha (The Great Wall). The sixth chapter gives an outlook on how the Indigenous depiction in Brazilian television will probably develop in the next few years in comparison to how it should develop.

An examination of the role of telenovelas -- a Latin American sister to the Western soap opera -- this book looks at their impact on the everyday lives of Latin American audiences. It seeks to explain telenovelas' cultural and commercial success; the meanings, identities, and social actions articulated through watching telenovelas; and how audiences -- often first- or second-generation migrants in the huge cities of Latin America -- use telenovelas in coping with urban life and modernity.

Brazilian Telenovelas and the Myth of Racial Democracy, by Samantha Nogueira Joyce, examines what happens when a telenovela directly addresses matters of race and racism in contemporary Brazil. This investigation provides a traditional textual analysis of Duas Caras (2007-2008), a watershed telenovela for two main reasons: It was the first of its kind to present audiences with an Afro-Brazilian as the main hero, openly addressing race matters through plot and dialogue. Additionally, for the first time in the history of Brazilian television, the author of Duas Caras kept a web blog where he discussed the public's reactions to the storylines, media discussions pertaining to the characters and plot, and directly engaged with fans and critics of the program. Joyce combines her investigation of Duas Caras with a study of related media in order to demonstrate how the program introduced novel ideas about race and also offered a forum where varying perspectives on race, class, and racial relations in Brazil could be discussed. Brazilian Telenovelas is not a reception study in the traditional sense, it is not a story of entertainment-education in the strict sense, and it is not solely a textual analysis. Instead, Joyce's text is a study of the social milieu that the telenovela (and especially Duas Caras) navigates, one that is a component of a contemporary progressive social movement in Brazil, and one that views the text as being located in social interactions. As such, this book reveals how telenovelas contribute to social change in a way that has not been fully explored in previous scholarship.

Citizens everywhere are turning to multiple news sources to inform their daily decisions. In Brazil, an emerging global power and democracy, those sources include the ever-popular telenovelas and, on a rising basis, newspapers. News and Novela in Brazilian Media: Fact, Fiction, and National Identity examines how news issues help frame telenovela plots, comparing key issues across Brazilian media to highlight differing levels of progression associated with press freedom. Scrutiny of concurrent print news stories, print news photos, and telenovela scenes indicate that when a hit telenovela is compared to news, the novela becomes a more progressive storyteller. At least, race, class, gender, and religious news issues seem more progressive: An Afro-Brazilian wins a local election; a favela or shantytown is idealized; a less popular African religion is heralded while Protestantism is marginalized and Catholicism continues as the right religion; and women achieving power leads to a more egalitarian society. In a diversifying media environment, where lines between fact and fiction are increasingly blurred, Brazilian alternative news studies are critical measures of Brazil’s state of media opening that inform national identity formation.

In Afro-Brazilians in Telenovelas: Social, Political, and Economic Realities, Samantha Nogueira Joyce examines representations of Blackness on Brazilian TV, interrogating the role of mass media in developing racial equality and social change. Nogueira Joyce challenges assumptions that place the inclusion of Afro-Brazilians in mass media as a step towards racial progress while contextualizing media representation with the social, political, and economic realities of the Brazilian society at large, thus linking media representations to progressive gains and conservative backlashes in the Brazilian public sphere. This book joins conversations with other works on multiculturalism, Blackness, and whiteness within media studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and Latin American studies. This multilayered approach combines textual analysis with studies of political and economic systems and digital media activism to carefully unravel Brazilian racial dynamics.