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How and why does legacy news media move from protecting to undermining democracy? Several studies argue that journalism can facilitate and shape democratic backsliding. However, evidence is scarce and, to some extent, limited to the content analysis of news outputs and editorials. The causal mechanisms of an anti-democratic role for the press and how it is operationalised into specific processes of news production remain largely misunderstood. Using 36 semi-structured qualitative interviews and three case studies, this paper analyses journalistic practices and role perceptions in Brazil within a period of constant decline in the quality of democracy (2016-2021). The results show that labour precarity is a crucial driver in journalistic practices capable of damaging democracy, which challenges previous assumptions that media capture is mostly influenced by the political economy of news organisations. This research also indicates that journalists are not homogeneously dominated by the interests of elites and can engage with them on their own terms to advance personal agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to discuss if and how Brazilian media outlets make use of automated strategies and artificial intelligence (AI) in order to produce convenient social media metrics about themselves and amplify their relevance on Twitter. We examine how media bots can manipulate online ratings, change social perception of what is relevant and increase engagement with both on- and offline media entities. We extracted three types of data: (i) 530,942 tweets containing at least one URL from Globo Group or Folha Group collected via Twitter API; (ii) URL metadata from 158,690 articles by Globo Group and Folha Group; (iii) Twitter trending topics in Brazil. Profiles that posted links were later sampled and classified using the Botometer. Automated and human accounts were analyzed regarding their posting frequency and speed. In this paper, we assess the hypothesis that the existence of media bots is affecting the Twittersphere in Brazil, where automated accounts, empowered by AI, might be responsible for a substantial share of the links to popular Brazilian media outlets on Twitter. Our research provides quantitative empirical evidence that bots are particularly active in amplifying news media links in the initial moments of spreading. Additionally, automated accounts play an important role in promoting TV broadcast programs in Brazil. Based on these evidences, we discuss the strategies adopted by Brazilian media corporations to sustain their omnipresence online that boosts their online audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is the result of research that has as its object of study the potential of local and regional History in the teaching and learning of History and an analysis of the commemorative centennial issue of Ituiutaba of the Jornal do Pontal (VI Year, Issue 951 process). From these studies, the paper presents a proposal of a sequence of lessons working in the context of questioning the official story of the city of Ituiutaba, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It was concluded that work in the classroom with regional and local History to articulate content and methodology, considering the contributions of the theory of History and drawing on multiple views, it is possible to provide students with learning experiences that develop critical insight, creative and transformative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the emergence of a global public sphere becomes a possibility, growing out of denser economic, political and communicative networks as well as demanded by increasingly complex international problems, questions arise about the capacity and willingness of various national publics to engage in the global debate. This paper shows the results of a news reception analysis with the public of the city of São Paulo, Brazil during the months of July–November 2006, when the Lebanon conflict was broadly covered by the Brazilian media. The paper identifies the modes of engagement with the news about the international conflict, the types of reasoning used by these publics in interpreting the news, and the types of debates and conversations they have or don’t have about the conflict. Special attention is given to the personal experience of learning about conflicts abroad and to the relationship between this experience and the construction of a new civic identity where participation in global affairs is an important element. The research shows that São Paulo residents are informed and care about international events, but to a large extent lack the resources and the spaces where they could reflect upon them. It also shows that young people tend to experience global events more intensely as part of their world than the general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current article is foregrounded on the relevant trajectory of the press as an object of historiographic reflection, with special reference to its geographical expansion in Brazil between the late 19th century and the early 20th century. It was precisely during this period that there was a displacement from the great urban centers and reached far and remote spaces. The paper deals with recent studies on the press in the Amazon underscoring the need for transpositioning of an annoying historiographic silence on the experiences within small villages and towns in the Amazon mobilized by an expanding rubber economy and based on a strong migratory movement to the region´s rubber trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the 1950s to the 1970s, during the peak of the cold war, communist journalists had a significant presence in Brazilian conservative papers. They even held highranking positions. Newspaper owners were aware of their political orientations, but they did not seem concerned. In fact, some of those communist journalists enjoyed high professional prestige. An unusual symbiotic relationship has developed between conservative publishers and their communist employees. This article discusses such relationship in light of the modernization of Brazilian newspapers that started in the 1950s. To modernize their newspapers, publishers needed to rely on journalists' ability to deal with the news as a technical, industrial product. Journalists with communist sympathies provided skilled work and were willing to be loyal and disciplined in the newsrooms. They had their own reasons for working in the "big press." The American rhetoric of professional journalism provided a common language for communist journalists and conservative publishers to work together. The Brazilian case has important lessons for analyzing the adaptation of the American model of professional journalism in different national settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media criticism is an essential activity for any democracy. Named as the fourth power, media generally are against criticisms made to their practices and products and almost never make any self-criticisms. Facing this fact the present paper arguments in favour of media criticism in order to improve their practice, and thus the reason why the manuscript ends showing a Brazilian experience on media observatories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]