Wired Favela by Andrea Medrado
Friday, May 7th, 2004. TV ROC’s team receives the daily agenda. The highlight is the inauguration of a small school, whose name is Brisa Rio. We’re talking about a garage that has been recently transformed into a school. It is located in front of a little soccer turf that is surrounded by trash, in Dionéia, one of Favela da Rocinha’s neediest areas. Around 20 kids of various ages and the teacher, Vivian, who looks much younger than her 21 years, are anxious to become protagonists of a TV story.
In the meantime, in Estrada da Gávea, an area known by its residents as the “asphalt border”, the reporter Paula Gomes folds a little piece of paper with a handwritten story and slides it into her pocket. To go to Dionéia, Paula hops on a “mototaxi”, a very popular transportation in Rocinha, consisting of a motorcycle used as cab. Another “mototaxi” takes Josivaldo, the editor, who doubles as camera operator. Going up the steep hills and narrow alleys of the favela on a “mototaxi” challenges the laws of gravity but what’s really scary is the bus drivers’ “get-out-of-my-way-cause-I’m-bigger-than-you” driving style.
Cable TV for everyone
In the telecommunications industry, just like buses do with motorcycles, the big and powerful push the small aside. TV ROC decided to challenge these laws. It was the beginning of 1996 when Dante Quinterno, an Argentinean businessman decided to carry out an innovative idea: to wire Favela da Rocinha with cable television. Favela means slum and Rocinha claims to be Latin America’s largest, with no less than 120,000 people jammed on two hillsides.
The idea sounded quite strange to most people because it did not agree with widespread thought that favelas are places for the poor, and the poor cannot afford luxuries such as having cable television.
The fact is Quinterno saw a gold mine in Rocinha. “I’ve always thought that cable TV could be directed to all targets: the classes A, B, but also the classes C, D and E. Our challenge was to demonstrate that there were potential consumers within the Brazilian (lower) economic classes. These consumers are, above all things, craving to be connected to the world. They want to see the diversity of languages and channels that exist in the world. The world does not end in the corners of Rocinha. Only the mind is the limit.”
According to Quinterno, this was an attempt to link marketing to social actions such as providing the community with information they could not otherwise obtain through the mainstream media, often much more focused on the violence and the drug trafficking.
This sum of marketing and social actions has turned into an irresistible equation for both national and international media. Stories about TV ROC can be found in the most important Brazilian newspapers and magazines, such as O Globo and IstoÉ, Brazilian TV stations, such as TV Cultura, and even in the BBC.
The marketing side of the TV ROC project is (well) represented by its cable branch, which deals with the transmission of national channels such as Futura, SBT and TV Senado as well as international channels such as Cartoon Network, Discovery and Fox. In order to have access to this programming, residents of Rocinha have to pay a monthly subscription of 25 Reais (roughly US$12), much less than what a middle-class family would have to pay for the same channels. The social side is represented by Channel 30, a community channel among many other.
Interesting to note that, as most companies that deal with customers in Brazil, TV ROC is affiliated with the Credit Protection Service (SPC). The system is a national database that keeps track of customers who do not pay their debts on time. Ultimately, not honoring the debts will result in the suspension of the service.
As for the number of subscribing households, the manager Rosangela Quarelli is unable to give a number. The subscriptions represent the company’s main source of income. Therefore this might be an attempt to avoid disclosure of TV ROC’s profitability. “It’s not possible to precise. Every month, we have a bunch of new subscriptions and every month there are people who do not pay and we have to cut the service. We have a very big oscillation. In the summer, Rocinha is crowded because everyone comes from the Northeast to work here, because there are many jobs. Then, after Carnival is over, everybody leaves. We have these ups and downs.”
TV ROC is not Globo
The subscription fees paid by the residents of Rocinha support TV ROC’s cable operations. Part of this revenue is invested on Channel 30, which is, in theory, a space that is truly dedicated to the needs and interests of the community.
According to the reporter Paula Gomes, TV ROC always highlights the positive aspects about the community and that’s why it has gained respect from Rocinha’s residents. “People in Rocinha care about TV ROC. They know it’s not Globo (Brazil’s major television network). Globo comes here whenever there’s shooting and somebody dies. TV ROC is here everyday to cover all the community events. These events would never attract attention from the mainstream media.”
It seems like there are good intentions in having a TV station that airs content made by its residents and for it residents. However, after 10 years in Rocinha, how does TV ROC benefit its residents? To what extent does the station keep itself loyal to the idea of “democratic information”, opening up a forum that meets the community’s needs?
A bridge between the favela and the asphalt
Community TV has created a lot of curiosity among the upper social classes. Most interns who are part of TV ROC Channel 30’s team comes from Rio de Janeiro’s private universities. According to director Dante Quinterno, this is an attempt to create a “bridge between the favela and the asphalt” (slang for the areas outside of the favelas), exposing middle-class students to the reality of a favela and therefore reducing their prejudices against it. Rosangela Quarelli, manager of TV ROC, explains why they have decided to employ college students as interns on Channel 30: “These interns come from private universities with the concept that the favelas are complicated to enter, that only criminals live there. We wanted to change this idea, bring these people inside. In the future, when they become great journalists and when they have to tell the news about a favela, a community, they will act in a more socially conscious way.”
The intern Priscila de Matos confirms that she has changed the ways she thinks about the favelas. “Before working here, I was really prejudiced. When I came, I came with fear. The first time I went up there (to the hillsides of Rocinha) I was suspicious. But then, after some time, I started to let myself go and to see that Rocinha is just like any other area or neighborhood.”
The reporter Paula Gomes talks about the fear the felt when working in Rocinha right after the drug trafficking war that happened in April of 2004. “I thought: I don’t wanna go there anymore, I’m scared. But everyone is scared. I don’t want to be scared and lock myself at home. I want to be scared and do something about my fears and the fears of others. I want to do something about other people’s lives as well. We have to show that their lives (Rocinha’s residents’) are not only about fear. They produce good things: art, culture, sports. They have a normal life within their patterns.”
However, some residents of Rocinha are more skeptical about this “bridge between the favela and the asphalt”. Selma is 23 and works as a hairdresser’s assistant in a beauty parlor in the upper-class neighborhood of Botafogo. She thinks that “TV ROC is a business. I believe it’s like 70 percent business, right? They are there to sell subscriptions and make money. I believe that’s how it is.”
Eliezer, another community member makes a suggestion: “Maybe they could lower the price a little bit, even if it that meant offering less variety of channels. Then, they could make Channel 30 more visible, airing it outside the favela, showing all the good things that happen in Rocinha to people who live outside of Rocinha. Maybe they could even start a soap opera with actors from the community. Channel 30 would become the channel people watch the most and everybody inside the community would be better informed.”
Community TV and Social Change
To what extent does community TV contribute to reducing the prejudices against the favelas, the social gaps between the favela and the asphalt and even the social gaps that exist within Rocinha itself?
The manager, Rosangela Quarelli, believes that TV ROC’s most visible benefit is generating jobs for the residents. The company employs 28 people, in which 10 are residents of Rocinha. Beside the jobs, working for the community channel (Channel 30) can open up doors for a career in journalism. Araújo, who works as a volunteer cameraman for Channel 30, explains how this experience can help him in the future: “Working here is like the first step. I can gain some experience without that much pressure. Later, I intend to move on and find a job in a bigger station.”
According to Quarelli, Channel 30 is open for any community member who wants to produce his/her own programs. She explains this process. “In the beginning, they come here and say: I’d like to have my own program, I could do it, I have my camera… In the beginning, we have always helped them, we do the editing. Then, after a month, for example, they start to look for sponsorships. If they get a sponsorship, TV ROC no longer does the editing. Then, we create a circle, generating more work at Rocinha. There are many people who film Christenings, birthdays, those things… there are people with editing bays. So, we give them work. They can get a hold of these tapes and do the editing. They start to walk with their own legs.”
These “sponsors” are local merchants such as restaurant and bars owners, among many other establishments. Community members who have their own shows go to them to ask for money, equipment or other contributions. In exchange, program producers do what they call in Rocinha informal advertisements for these local merchants. It means that people in charge of the community-generated programs will say “hello” or “send a hug” to their sponsors on air or they will recommend the viewers to check out the sponsor’s establishments.
Public Utility
TV ROC creates jobs and gives a few residents the opportunity to produce their own shows for Channel 30, however the station’s role as a social change agent is limited. Some community members indicate that TV ROC might be increasing the social disparities within Rocinha by not paying enough attention to the residents who live in its most needy areas.
On the other hand, some residents say they have benefited from the information TV ROC provided them with. Eliezer, for example, describes the reasons why he likes Channel 30: “Having Channel 30 is like having a key to the community. If there is a neighborhood meeting, they go there. If some politician, someone like the secretary of safety comes here to talk to community representatives, they cover the entire meeting, so that the community can be aware of the important issues being discussed. If there’s a vaccination going on, or milk distribution for children… the channel lets us know about it.”
While it’s not so possible to see how community TV can contribute to social change, it’s worth remembering what it can do best. Tião Santos, who is a member of the Viva Rio NGO, puts it very simply: “There was a research about community media and one of the questions was: why watch community television or listen to community radio? The answer with the largest percentage was: because it tells me things that are of my interest, because it tells me things about my community. This indicates that the more the medium gets close to people’s daily lives, the better.”
TV ROC’s Channel 30 takes this idea of being close to people’s daily lives very seriously. It covers neighborhood meetings, forró (a rhythm from northeastern Brazil), concerts, school inaugurations, birthday parties, among other not so glamorous events. It also airs ads about lost documents, lost dogs and even messages from husbands who are asking their wives to forgive them.
Community TV as a mirror
Besides being useful in daily issues, the community channel has the ability to raising its audience’s self-esteem. Instead of pretending that the favela is invisible, like the mainstream channels do, its cameras focus closely on the houses, tents and wooden shacks with their clotheslines. The community channel also treats people who are used to being seen as criminals as celebrities (even if for only 5 minutes).
The resident of Rocinha Rodrigo Carvalho illustrates this concept well. “Channel 30 is cool because instead of watching soap opera, people start paying closer attention to their own neighbors. This helps us see the good in our community. We see our neighbors on screen, not some Globo artist.”
And so, we go back to the beginning of this article and to the protagonists of the story about the inauguration of the school Brisa Rio. The kids are not blond and blue-eyed like the kids of the prime-time soap opera. They also do not have those ready-to-go, smart and annoying answers. In front of the cameras, some act goofy while some hide their faces. And how about Vívian, the young teacher portrayed in the story?
Some people have changed the world with a great scientific discovery and became news. Others became news by turning their lives into a gossip circus. Why not give space to this young woman who has changed the lives of children who live on the hillsides of Rocinha by turning her garage into a school?
In the meantime, in Estrada da Gávea, an area known by its residents as the “asphalt border”, the reporter Paula Gomes folds a little piece of paper with a handwritten story and slides it into her pocket. To go to Dionéia, Paula hops on a “mototaxi”, a very popular transportation in Rocinha, consisting of a motorcycle used as cab. Another “mototaxi” takes Josivaldo, the editor, who doubles as camera operator. Going up the steep hills and narrow alleys of the favela on a “mototaxi” challenges the laws of gravity but what’s really scary is the bus drivers’ “get-out-of-my-way-cause-I’m-bigger-than-you” driving style.
Cable TV for everyone
In the telecommunications industry, just like buses do with motorcycles, the big and powerful push the small aside. TV ROC decided to challenge these laws. It was the beginning of 1996 when Dante Quinterno, an Argentinean businessman decided to carry out an innovative idea: to wire Favela da Rocinha with cable television. Favela means slum and Rocinha claims to be Latin America’s largest, with no less than 120,000 people jammed on two hillsides.
The idea sounded quite strange to most people because it did not agree with widespread thought that favelas are places for the poor, and the poor cannot afford luxuries such as having cable television.
The fact is Quinterno saw a gold mine in Rocinha. “I’ve always thought that cable TV could be directed to all targets: the classes A, B, but also the classes C, D and E. Our challenge was to demonstrate that there were potential consumers within the Brazilian (lower) economic classes. These consumers are, above all things, craving to be connected to the world. They want to see the diversity of languages and channels that exist in the world. The world does not end in the corners of Rocinha. Only the mind is the limit.”
According to Quinterno, this was an attempt to link marketing to social actions such as providing the community with information they could not otherwise obtain through the mainstream media, often much more focused on the violence and the drug trafficking.
This sum of marketing and social actions has turned into an irresistible equation for both national and international media. Stories about TV ROC can be found in the most important Brazilian newspapers and magazines, such as O Globo and IstoÉ, Brazilian TV stations, such as TV Cultura, and even in the BBC.
The marketing side of the TV ROC project is (well) represented by its cable branch, which deals with the transmission of national channels such as Futura, SBT and TV Senado as well as international channels such as Cartoon Network, Discovery and Fox. In order to have access to this programming, residents of Rocinha have to pay a monthly subscription of 25 Reais (roughly US$12), much less than what a middle-class family would have to pay for the same channels. The social side is represented by Channel 30, a community channel among many other.
Interesting to note that, as most companies that deal with customers in Brazil, TV ROC is affiliated with the Credit Protection Service (SPC). The system is a national database that keeps track of customers who do not pay their debts on time. Ultimately, not honoring the debts will result in the suspension of the service.
As for the number of subscribing households, the manager Rosangela Quarelli is unable to give a number. The subscriptions represent the company’s main source of income. Therefore this might be an attempt to avoid disclosure of TV ROC’s profitability. “It’s not possible to precise. Every month, we have a bunch of new subscriptions and every month there are people who do not pay and we have to cut the service. We have a very big oscillation. In the summer, Rocinha is crowded because everyone comes from the Northeast to work here, because there are many jobs. Then, after Carnival is over, everybody leaves. We have these ups and downs.”
TV ROC is not Globo
The subscription fees paid by the residents of Rocinha support TV ROC’s cable operations. Part of this revenue is invested on Channel 30, which is, in theory, a space that is truly dedicated to the needs and interests of the community.
According to the reporter Paula Gomes, TV ROC always highlights the positive aspects about the community and that’s why it has gained respect from Rocinha’s residents. “People in Rocinha care about TV ROC. They know it’s not Globo (Brazil’s major television network). Globo comes here whenever there’s shooting and somebody dies. TV ROC is here everyday to cover all the community events. These events would never attract attention from the mainstream media.”
It seems like there are good intentions in having a TV station that airs content made by its residents and for it residents. However, after 10 years in Rocinha, how does TV ROC benefit its residents? To what extent does the station keep itself loyal to the idea of “democratic information”, opening up a forum that meets the community’s needs?
A bridge between the favela and the asphalt
Community TV has created a lot of curiosity among the upper social classes. Most interns who are part of TV ROC Channel 30’s team comes from Rio de Janeiro’s private universities. According to director Dante Quinterno, this is an attempt to create a “bridge between the favela and the asphalt” (slang for the areas outside of the favelas), exposing middle-class students to the reality of a favela and therefore reducing their prejudices against it. Rosangela Quarelli, manager of TV ROC, explains why they have decided to employ college students as interns on Channel 30: “These interns come from private universities with the concept that the favelas are complicated to enter, that only criminals live there. We wanted to change this idea, bring these people inside. In the future, when they become great journalists and when they have to tell the news about a favela, a community, they will act in a more socially conscious way.”
The intern Priscila de Matos confirms that she has changed the ways she thinks about the favelas. “Before working here, I was really prejudiced. When I came, I came with fear. The first time I went up there (to the hillsides of Rocinha) I was suspicious. But then, after some time, I started to let myself go and to see that Rocinha is just like any other area or neighborhood.”
The reporter Paula Gomes talks about the fear the felt when working in Rocinha right after the drug trafficking war that happened in April of 2004. “I thought: I don’t wanna go there anymore, I’m scared. But everyone is scared. I don’t want to be scared and lock myself at home. I want to be scared and do something about my fears and the fears of others. I want to do something about other people’s lives as well. We have to show that their lives (Rocinha’s residents’) are not only about fear. They produce good things: art, culture, sports. They have a normal life within their patterns.”
However, some residents of Rocinha are more skeptical about this “bridge between the favela and the asphalt”. Selma is 23 and works as a hairdresser’s assistant in a beauty parlor in the upper-class neighborhood of Botafogo. She thinks that “TV ROC is a business. I believe it’s like 70 percent business, right? They are there to sell subscriptions and make money. I believe that’s how it is.”
Eliezer, another community member makes a suggestion: “Maybe they could lower the price a little bit, even if it that meant offering less variety of channels. Then, they could make Channel 30 more visible, airing it outside the favela, showing all the good things that happen in Rocinha to people who live outside of Rocinha. Maybe they could even start a soap opera with actors from the community. Channel 30 would become the channel people watch the most and everybody inside the community would be better informed.”
Community TV and Social Change
To what extent does community TV contribute to reducing the prejudices against the favelas, the social gaps between the favela and the asphalt and even the social gaps that exist within Rocinha itself?
The manager, Rosangela Quarelli, believes that TV ROC’s most visible benefit is generating jobs for the residents. The company employs 28 people, in which 10 are residents of Rocinha. Beside the jobs, working for the community channel (Channel 30) can open up doors for a career in journalism. Araújo, who works as a volunteer cameraman for Channel 30, explains how this experience can help him in the future: “Working here is like the first step. I can gain some experience without that much pressure. Later, I intend to move on and find a job in a bigger station.”
According to Quarelli, Channel 30 is open for any community member who wants to produce his/her own programs. She explains this process. “In the beginning, they come here and say: I’d like to have my own program, I could do it, I have my camera… In the beginning, we have always helped them, we do the editing. Then, after a month, for example, they start to look for sponsorships. If they get a sponsorship, TV ROC no longer does the editing. Then, we create a circle, generating more work at Rocinha. There are many people who film Christenings, birthdays, those things… there are people with editing bays. So, we give them work. They can get a hold of these tapes and do the editing. They start to walk with their own legs.”
These “sponsors” are local merchants such as restaurant and bars owners, among many other establishments. Community members who have their own shows go to them to ask for money, equipment or other contributions. In exchange, program producers do what they call in Rocinha informal advertisements for these local merchants. It means that people in charge of the community-generated programs will say “hello” or “send a hug” to their sponsors on air or they will recommend the viewers to check out the sponsor’s establishments.
Public Utility
TV ROC creates jobs and gives a few residents the opportunity to produce their own shows for Channel 30, however the station’s role as a social change agent is limited. Some community members indicate that TV ROC might be increasing the social disparities within Rocinha by not paying enough attention to the residents who live in its most needy areas.
On the other hand, some residents say they have benefited from the information TV ROC provided them with. Eliezer, for example, describes the reasons why he likes Channel 30: “Having Channel 30 is like having a key to the community. If there is a neighborhood meeting, they go there. If some politician, someone like the secretary of safety comes here to talk to community representatives, they cover the entire meeting, so that the community can be aware of the important issues being discussed. If there’s a vaccination going on, or milk distribution for children… the channel lets us know about it.”
While it’s not so possible to see how community TV can contribute to social change, it’s worth remembering what it can do best. Tião Santos, who is a member of the Viva Rio NGO, puts it very simply: “There was a research about community media and one of the questions was: why watch community television or listen to community radio? The answer with the largest percentage was: because it tells me things that are of my interest, because it tells me things about my community. This indicates that the more the medium gets close to people’s daily lives, the better.”
TV ROC’s Channel 30 takes this idea of being close to people’s daily lives very seriously. It covers neighborhood meetings, forró (a rhythm from northeastern Brazil), concerts, school inaugurations, birthday parties, among other not so glamorous events. It also airs ads about lost documents, lost dogs and even messages from husbands who are asking their wives to forgive them.
Community TV as a mirror
Besides being useful in daily issues, the community channel has the ability to raising its audience’s self-esteem. Instead of pretending that the favela is invisible, like the mainstream channels do, its cameras focus closely on the houses, tents and wooden shacks with their clotheslines. The community channel also treats people who are used to being seen as criminals as celebrities (even if for only 5 minutes).
The resident of Rocinha Rodrigo Carvalho illustrates this concept well. “Channel 30 is cool because instead of watching soap opera, people start paying closer attention to their own neighbors. This helps us see the good in our community. We see our neighbors on screen, not some Globo artist.”
And so, we go back to the beginning of this article and to the protagonists of the story about the inauguration of the school Brisa Rio. The kids are not blond and blue-eyed like the kids of the prime-time soap opera. They also do not have those ready-to-go, smart and annoying answers. In front of the cameras, some act goofy while some hide their faces. And how about Vívian, the young teacher portrayed in the story?
Some people have changed the world with a great scientific discovery and became news. Others became news by turning their lives into a gossip circus. Why not give space to this young woman who has changed the lives of children who live on the hillsides of Rocinha by turning her garage into a school?
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