The images of June 2013: a dispute for Brazil

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the events of June 2013 from a specific focus: the political-communicational clash between media activism and corporate media in their dispute over society's imaginary and the narrative control about the protests. On one hand, Mídia Ninja, here understood as the most prominent media activist initiative in the context of the protests, due to the notoriety it achieved and also its legitimacy among protesters and even among the hegemonic media themselves, and the level of challenge it established for the latter. On the other hand, the most popular and far-reaching media outlets in the country, represented here by two of the newspapers with the largest national circulation, O Globo and Estado de S. Paulo. Four photographs, seen illustrative about how these vehicles conceived the political demonstrations from perspectives not only distinct, but conflicting, are analyzed. It is argued that June 2013 was an extremely media and visual event, in which images played a key role in its construction and development, as well as the aforementioned clash reflected not only a clash between distinct media models, but also the conflicting encounter amid incongruous ways of conceiving, narrating, and representing politics, society and the nation.