Murder in live streaming and the chronicle of drug dealing: Social Media and drug trafficking in Brazil

Abstract

This paper explores some aspects of the smartphone as a relevant tool for different tasks within the highly complex productive chain of drug trafficking in Brazil. From an ethnographic approach to uses of mobile technology, this study observes the digital media coverage on the use of smartphones by Brazilian criminal organizations along with comments and social interactions among users. A central point in the characterization of violence in Brazil is the complex interweaving between police, society and drug trafficking as a professional practice, in which political ideology and class struggle converge. The results highlight crucial questions about contradictions in contemporary Brazilian urban society: the relevance of digital technologies in criminal practices; the lack of content control by social media; the disparity between the police’s public agenda and its real actions; the efficiency of criminal organizations in communicating freely using the wide-open operating space of the Internet; the functioning of criminal organizations through their war on the control of “territories”.