Estudos em Comunicação (Dec 2011)
Journalism as a profession in Brazil
Abstract
Journalism as a profession in Brazil discusses the professional characteristics of Journalism in Brazil under the following aspects: 1) formal conditions of access, 2) conditions and effects of the monopoly on the journalistic activity 3) presence of a distinct culture and ethic, based on the notion of the journalist’s social responsibility and 4) characteristics of the real community of individuals who share the journalistic identity. Based on this scope, we can perceive the singularity of the Brazilian formal access conditions, albeit currently in transition. The university diploma for professional journalists, a recently eliminated mandatory requirement, created in the past a specific access condition and produced a field of specialized journalists with a university diploma. The journalists debate today about the end of their access card and a total lack of professional regulation. At the same time, there is a reduction of formal job positions, which are more concentrated with the large media groups, and worsening of working conditions and salaries. The emergence of other types of functions, due to new technological characteristics of the communication field, although potentially increasing professional possibilities, generate dilemmas regarding production and distribution of information. To these new challenges old ones have to be added, such as the need to ethically equate the work done by press offices, as these consist today the majority of job positions for journalists in the country. This work expands the discussion about these characteristics of the journalistic profession in Brazil based on quantitative and qualitative dada produced by the Comprehensive Analysis of Brazilian Communications and Telecommunications.
