Online Favela: The Use of Social Media by the Marginalized in Brazil

Abstract

Based on fieldwork over six months in the favelas (urban slums) of Vitória, Brazil, this paper focuses on the motivations, engagements and adoption of social media by marginalized people in community technology centers (CTCs). It asks the following questions: (1) what is their experience using CTCs? (2) How does their experience inform the ways we should think about what constitutes empowerment vis-à-vis social media? This paper emphasizes the socio-cultural aspects of social media practices among marginalized people and attempts to understand such aspects and practices from their perspective. It argues that theoretical positions stemming from technology utilitarianism need expanding, because mundane and non-instrumental practices observed in the favelas shed light on the importance of technology in a variety of dimensions within people's lives. Encompassing such practices contributes to a broader comprehension of the engagements and ingenious strategies that help shape the daily use of technology by marginalized people.

Keywords:

• digital inequality
• favela
• social media
• ICT4D
• empowerment

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Caitlin Bentley, Shad Gross, David Hakken and Eden Medina for their comments and feedback on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

David Nemer is a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University in the School of Informatics and Computing, concentrating in Social Informatics. He received a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Saarland University, Germany. He also holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from FAESA, Brazil and a B.Sc. in Business Administration from Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Brazil. His research and teaching interests cover the intersection of international development, new media, community informatics, ICT for Development (ICT4D), science and technology studies (STS), postcolonial STS and human–computer interaction (HCI). Methodologically, he uses qualitative methods drawn from critical ethnography in online and offline contexts, and quantitative and qualitative content analyses of the web.

Notes

1. LAN Houses are establishments, such as cybercafés, where people can pay to access computers, Internet and video games. Due to the sociotechnical benefits given by LAN houses to the local communities, such facilities are also considered as a CTC (Nemer & Reed, 2013).

2. This paper defines social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content” such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 60).

3. Inclusion Agents are the people responsible for taking care of each Telecenter, promoting computer-related workshop and classes and help the users.

4. I created a new account and used it for this study to keep in touch with the informants.

5. Gastar, which in English means “to spend” or “to waste,” is a term used by teenager to describe the activity of hanging out, chitchatting, making comments and mocking someone.