Looking in the mirror: the global '68 through the Brazilian daily press
ISSN: 0819-8691
Article publication date: 19 January 2021
Issue publication date: 2 June 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This article explains the process of construction and configuration of the Brazilian social imaginary on the global '68 using the daily press as source material.
Design/methodology/approach
It looks at the narratives conveyed by the press about the condition, situation, motivations, aspirations and capacity for action of young university students. The analysis is focused mainly on the usage of totalitarian language and permits an in-depth view of the reality of life in Brazil at the time and the role played by the students in the resistance to the dictatorship. It also includes an analysis of how other students' protests of 1968 – in Poland and Mexico – were portrayed through the media, and how they helped to shape the collective imaginary about Brazilian university students, situating it in a conjuncture of broader dimensions and connections.
Findings
The youth of Brazil, Poland and Mexico were represented as active political and social subjects, capable of defying, and sometimes profoundly upsetting, the established order. Violence and the discourse of violence were constant unifying elements in the narratives created by the daily press. This helped generate an image of university students which portrayed them as a rebellious, revolutionary and/or subversive sector of the population, responsible for one of the most extensive and profound social and political crises which those countries had experienced in decades.
Originality/value
This is the first study of the Brazilian reception of the '68 Polish and Mexican students' protest and its implications for the social narrative of students' resistance in Brazil.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This research Project was funded by the schemes Ayudas del Plan de Movilidad del Personal Investigador. Convocatoria 2016 and Ayudas del Plan de Movilidad del Personal Investigador. Convocatoria 2018, both from the University of Valladolid (Spain). It is also part of a broader project, whose aim is to analyse the processes whereby social views on education were shaped by the daily press in time of political and social change in Mediterranean Europe and Latin America, conducted by the research group at the University of Valladolid Ágora de Educación (www.agoradeeducacion.com). This work is also part of the research project Connecting History of Education. Redes internacionales, producción científica y difusión global (CHE)/Connecting History of Education. International networks, scientific production and global dissemination (CHE) (Ref.: PID2019-105328GB-I00. Convocatoria 2019 - «Proyectos de I+D+i». Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Spain).
Citation
Hernández Huerta, J.L. (2022), "Looking in the mirror: the global '68 through the Brazilian daily press", History of Education Review, Vol. 51 No. 1, pp. 47-63. https://doi.org/10.1108/HER-03-2020-0016
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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