On January 22, Cicilia Krohling Peruzzo was invited to a doctoral seminar “Popular, community and alternative communication. Resistance and the right to communication”, organized by the doctoral program in Communication Studies: Technology, Culture and Society. The University of Rio de Janeiro researcher discussed forms of “counter-communication” developed by social movements.
According to Cicilia Peruzzo, Brazil is a country of immense inequalities, warning of malnutrition and violence, as well as racial and gender discrimination. “The problem goes from one century to another, from one decade to another” so it is essential to understand the contradictions of classes, added the visiting professor at the Graduate Program in Social Communication at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.
Despite the contradictions and conflicts, the researcher stresses that there are Brazilian entities that strive to reduce these problems and promote change. These social movements aim to achieve better conditions, develop knowledge and “foster the capacity for social mobilization and intervention to avoid influence”. And it is such social movements that shape what Cicilia Peruzzo calls “counter-communication”.
To address this concept, the Brazilian researcher spoke of popular, community and alternative communication as a “counter-communication”, which distances itself from the traditional formats and content of communication, in ideological politics, in production strategies, in active participation, in freedom of expression and the sources of information heard. Individuals are not limited to the “role of recipient, but also of content producer”, explains Cicilia Peruzzo.
Before finishing this doctoral seminar, there was still time for a brief debate in which the researcher challenged the participants to think about this new form of communication.
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