Usos da internet nos movimentos sociais negros em rede na luta pela igualdade racial no Brasil: estudo de caso da Agência Afropress

Abstract

This thesis reflects on the uses of the internet by black social movements in network in the communication of their agendas of struggles for racial equality. Through the Case Study of the performance of Afropress News Agency, are thought the agencements, practices, and tensions involved in the experience of using the internet in a communicational project focused in activism against racism. Founded in May 2004 in São Paulo, the Afropress is one of the first news agencies specializing in issues related to citizenship and identity of African descents, the pursuit of racial equality and fight against racism, also denouncing discrimination. Its web site www.afropress.com.br is the main interface of activity and visibility of the organization, which also have profiles on Facebook, Orkut and Twitter, and also on YouTube. The aim of the investigation was to cast an eye on the experience of the Agency in the light of theoretical axes of network communication, internet, social movements and the struggle for racial equality, linking these points to understand the role of activism for racial equality in a moment when society, within its several temporalities, lives the information age. The methodological approach built for this research is qualitative and the methodological strategy for the analysis of the data is the Case Study. As construction techniques of empirical data we have used Observation, both for the routine work of Afropress, as for the materiality of the object represented by its web site; the Interview, and also the bibliographic and documentary research. Among the research results, we could verify that communication is still an important strategy in black activism, and has increasingly affirmed itself in the processes of struggle for racial equality, with the insertion of information and communication technologies, especially of the internet, which also potentialized the network performance of black social movements. Still, it was observed that the Afropress simultaneously exercises the function of engaging news media, and space of the empowerment of the black social movements, visibility, discussions, tensions and of the generation of practices around the of struggle for racial equality agendas.