Nós, mulheres da periferia e Amazônia Real: a cobertura jornalística da pandemia de Covid-19 pela perspectiva decolonial e interseccional

Abstract

This research investigates how independent journalism initiatives, which are economic arrangements alternative to media conglomerates (FIGARO, 2018), covered the Covid-19 pandemic in Brazil and inequalities of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and territory in the time frame of 2020 and 2021. We start from the understanding that the spread of the virus across the country has accentuated pre-existing vulnerabilities in the peripheries, indigenous communities, and poor and black women. Our methodological approach leads us to two journalistic initiatives: Nós, mulheres da periferia, and Amazônia Real. Both were founded by women journalists and produced special reports about Covid-19. They also had human rights as a core value and defended the bond with their territory. Its publishing lines include themes linked with, respectively, black women and native peoples of Amazônia. For these reasons, they are believed to have decolonial potential in their journalistic practices. These are the questions that guided the central objective of the research: to investigate how Nós, mulheres da periferia, and Amazônia Real covered the Covid-19 pandemic crossed by intersectional inequalities (gender, race, class, ethnicity, and territory) and, allied to this, evaluate the presence of decolonial practices in their journalistic products. It is qualitative research anchored in the decolonial and intersectional perspective. Our analysis reveals that both apprehend intersectional markers in their reports, the journalistic agenda, and the choice of sources. It was also possible to highlight elements of organizations that converge with decoloniality: in proximity to the sources, in the openness to polysemy and polyphony of voices, and for prioritizing local sources and data from institutions that consider the populations portrayed.