In Brazil, radio has been a powerful tool for access to education and information to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This article was originally published in Pandemic Discourses.
It is three o’clock in the afternoon and Emília and Maria Vitória gather their notebooks to sit by the radio in the kitchen. As described by journalist Mariana Ceci (2020) in Revista Piauí, the mother and daughter have been doing this ritual since mid-March 2020, when #stayathome orders in Rio Grande do Norte State temporarily closed down schools. Brazilian regional administrators promptly determined that the radio was an effective option for providing remote education to students like Emília who lived in distant rural areas. Whereas unstable internet connections and other digital inequities only allow for minimal exchange between teachers and students, low-frequency one-way-transmission radio waves provide a more reliable transmission for classroom communication. Radiophonic schooling has been a practice in Brazil since the 1950s, when parishes of the Catholic Church aimed to establish and maintain their activities in isolated areas. The radio became a model for inclusive education, pushing towards making formal learning opportunities accessible so that people could be empowered and freed by gaining literacy, no matter how isolated they were.
In this COVID-19 moment of social distancing and seclusion, the radio appears again as a democratic apparatus. While the analog radio may be considered an outdated medium, we can still recognize its value as an accessible tool connecting people in remote education classes as well as helping to raise underprivileged community voices.
This article looks at the role of the radio as an object and a medium for bottom-up initiatives to combat some of the onus of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration during the COVID-19 pandemic. The radio plays a crucial role in reaching broader audiences. This has been a particularly reliable communications tool used by both states and citizens during wars and dictatorships – a tool of control as well as a tool of resistance. In this COVID-19 moment of social distancing and seclusion, the radio appears again as a democratic apparatus. While the analog radio may be considered an outdated medium, we can still recognize its value as an accessible tool connecting people in remote education classes as well as helping to raise underprivileged community voices.
While the federal government continuously fails to provide clear public health guidance and advice to its citizens — only to be further compounded by giving false, misleading information that hides official numbers and data — the COVID-19 crisis has steadily worsened. Communities have sought alternatives to mainstream media coverage through communication tools like radio.
In addition to radio schooling, we also see examples of community radios as local resources. Though these radios are low-range and therefore are regionally specific, these stations are freely accessed, extremely popular, and influential. Some examples of these community radio stations are in favelas. Established in 1992, the radio from the favela of Heliópolis in São Paulo was first known as Rádio Corneta (Bungle Radio). Programming would be broadcast and amplified through speakers attached to poles in the streets across the community. Understanding that the radio was a fundamental tool for popular mobilization, Rádio Corneta got its own radio frequency in 1997 to engage in dialogues with community members about assemblies and task forces in the favela.
In Rio de Janeiro, Rádio Rocinha broadcasts to over 25,000 households located in the Rocinha favela in a single day. While originally created as a low-frequency community radio, people can also access its content online, broadening its reach. Beyond providing musical entertainment for the community, the Rádio Rochina also announces resources and tips for the listeners, such as where to subscribe for governmental aid for the unemployed, how to locate the closest medical facilities, and how to clean face masks. Rádio Rochina has even created a jingle raising awareness about the coronavirus pandemic that plays during commercial breaks. In the absence of federal guidance and a lack of organization from the Ministry of Health, some health agencies such as Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) have partnered with local musical celebrities to produce a series of free audio recordings calling attention to the pandemic and giving valuable information on preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Isolated indigenous communities in northern Brazil have also created mechanisms to stay informed about COVID-19 related issues via radio. Despite a strong and active presence of several indigenous groups and community members within social networks, there are still areas with no online connection, either due to the lack of infrastructure or signal malfunction. The Instituto Socio Ambiental (ISA) reported that certain remote communities receive daily radiogram messages providing guidance and general regional data and information regarding the pandemic on protected indigenous land. In the Alto do Rio Negro indigenous territory, located in Amazonas State, there are about three hundred radio stations distributed across three different municipalities. An organized group of “comunicadores indígenas” (indigenous communicators) together with recently arrived members of Doctors Without Borders are in charge of creating content and broadcasting different kinds of information related to health measures in the area, since there are no other national resources available to these communities.
Education alternatives and the emergence of local decentralized administration and community-organized responses to the pandemic are just a few of the needs that emerged during the COVID-19 crisis in Brazil that go beyond the necessity for medical aid. These examples highlight the vital importance of communication methods in how Brazil has been dealing with the pandemic.
The radio represents the possibility of a guiding voice, and some sort of civic organization towards accessing knowledge, and trusted information. While there are many grassroots initiatives being held online, a large portion of the population still has limited access to broadband internet, thus the need for an organized local communication channel that each community can trust. Education alternatives and the emergence of local decentralized administration and community-organized responses to the pandemic are just a few of the needs that emerged during the COVID-19 crisis in Brazil that go beyond the necessity for medical aid. These examples highlight the vital importance of communication methods in how Brazil has been dealing with the pandemic.
It is worth remembering that as an instrument, the radio itself is not inherently democratic. The radio has been an important tool for disseminating propaganda for dictatorial governments globally, such as in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. In Brazil, President Getúlio Vargas (1930-45) centralized communication efforts that were put in practice through A Hora do Brasil (Brazilian Hour). Created in 1938, this was a mandatory evening radio program to broadcast Vargas’ speeches and self-advertisements.
In contrast to the role of the radio as an object filtering and directing selected information of the 1930s totalitarian regimes, citizens today face a different approach to media usage and dissemination of knowledge. President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration has engaged in misinformation and attempts to disrupt public access to basic information and official data, such as the COVID-19 case numbers, attempts to use social networks to boycott journalists and newspapers, and the dissemination of fake news. As a result, the transparency and accountability expected of democratic regimes is jeopardized by multiple and confusing channels of communication.
Radio devices were once used to amplify the voice of a totalitarian state. Nevertheless, as we see from the examples of peripheral communities in Brazil, experiments exploring the radio’s multiple wave frequencies have led to the rediscovery of the radio not as a centralized mechanism of repression but as a decentralized source of empowerment and resistance.
Despite the uncertainty, communities still come back to the radio as a reliable medium. Whether turning to radio to access school education or using local radio to stay informed about COVID-19, radio is a tool that gives communities a chance to learn and make informed decisions.
Despite the uncertainty, communities still come back to the radio as a reliable medium. Whether turning to radio to access school education or using local radio to stay informed about COVID-19, radio is a tool that gives communities a chance to learn and make informed decisions. While resistance work can be done via the internet, the radio allows communities to tone down the noise that pollutes the current media landscape and establish direct forms of communication with their members.
Laura Belik is a PhD Candidate in Architecture: History, Theory and Society at the University of California Berkeley. She holds an MA in Design Studies from Parsons The New School for Design (New York) and a B.Arch. in Architecture and Urban Planning from Escola da Cidade (São Paulo- Brazil). Her doctoral dissertation work focuses on the histories and dimensions of socio-spatial inequalities in the Brazilian Northeast region and how to interpret multiple memories of the built environment.
This piece was adapted from an article originally published in a recent special issue of Design and Culture entitled Design in the Pandemic: Dispatches from the Early Months, co-edited by Jilly Traganou, Betti Marenko, and Barbara Adams.