Media discourses on the World Social Forums: Towards comparative analyses

• Main Author: Jan Ekecrantz
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal da Bahia 2004-12-01
• Series: Contemporanea : Revista de Comunicação e Cultura
• Subjects: World Social Forums; dominant media; cultural globalization
• Online Access: http://www.portalseer.ufba.br/index.php/contemporaneaposcom/article/view/3417/2487

The reflections to be presented in this and a parallel article by Maia and Castro are based on ongoing studies of Brazilian, Swedish and Russian and Chinese media materials dealing with the World Social Forums (WSF) in 2001-2004. The overriding question in this paper concerns the ways mainstream media of very different societieshave re-constructed the global and local issues addressed by the Forums. Of the four market-oriented economies, Communist China and Post-Socialist Russia stand out as being almost silent about the WSF, favouring economic globalization - seemingly at odds with cultural globalization. In Brazil and Sweden the dominant media harbourcontradictory discourses reflecting different political positions visavi the WSF.