EL COMPROMISO DE LOS JÓVENES CON BAJOS INGRESOS CON LA COMUNICACIÓN PARA EL CAMBIO SOCIAL: UN ENFOQUE ETNOGRÁFICO

Abstract

This article presents an ethnographic approach to how low-income Brazilians of impoverished urban areas have engaged in community journalism and media activism. Exploring empirical materials collected during a seven-year research process (2009-2016), the article has two main objectives. One is to analyze how low-income youth reflect on their own processes of engagement in communication for social change (CFSC). Another objective is to demonstrate how ethnography can provide in-depth analyses of trajectories and initiatives in CFSC. The article primarily focuses on retrospective accounts of young adults who had participated in media-educational projects by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and subsequently became active agents of change in, through and about media. The analysis of these accounts indicates how the participation in NGO projects characterize actions for self-development. It also demonstrates how interactions among participants – not necessarily anticipated by NGOs – are crucial for low-income youth to engage in activist media and journalism in peripheral Rio de Janeiro. The article ends with a reflection about how ethnography is a useful method to add in-depth qualitative layers to the evaluation of CFSC initiatives.