Undergraduate degree in Earth Journalism: building another communication by the experience of an insurgent citizenship

Abstract

The objective of this study is to evaluate the Earth Journalism course, the contribution of the Universidade Federal do Ceará to the reflection of internal and external communication processes of settlements and settlers of the MST in Brazil. The methodology used was the account of various aspects of the course and content analysis (BARDIN, 2011) of 45 works of completion of undergraduate students. These work, by addressing issues of different nature, analyzing communication experiences in the settlements and society, or performing alternative communication products, demonstrate the participation of the ongoing reflection on Communication between activists of the Landless Movement and society in general, expanding the exercise of citizenship, which would qualify as insurgent in the design of Holston (2013).

Keywords
Earth Journalism; Citizenship; Communication; Land reform; Media; Education

Resumo

O objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar a contribuição do curso de graduação em Jornalismo da Terra, da Universidade Federal do Ceará, à reflexão dos processos de comunicação internos e externos dos assentados e assentadas do MST e do MAB no Brasil. A metodologia utilizada foi a descrição de aspectos diversos do curso e a análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 2011) dos 45 trabalhos de conclusão de graduação dos alunos. Estes trabalhos, abordando temáticas de natureza diversa, analisando experiências de comunicação nos assentamentos e na sociedade, ou realizando produtos de comunicação alternativos, demonstram a participação do curso na reflexão da Comunicação entre os militantes do Movimento Sem Terra e com a sociedade em geral, ampliando o exercício de uma cidadania, que se classificaria como insurgente, na concepção de Holston (2013).

Palavras chave
Jornalismo da Terra; Cidadania; Comunicação; Reforma agrária; Mídia; Educação

Resumen

El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar la contribución de curso Periodismo de la Tierra, de la Universidad Federal de Ceará, para el reflejo de los procesos de comunicación interna y externa de los asentados y asentadas del MST y do MAB en Brasil. La metodología utilizada fue la descripción de varios aspectos del curso y el análisis de contenido (BARDIN, 2011) de 45 tesis de grado de los estudiantes. Estos trabajos sobre temas de naturaleza diversa, analizan experiencias de comunicación en los asentamientos y en la sociedad, o realizan productos de comunicación alternativos, demuestran la participación del curso en la reflexión de la Comunicación los activistas del Movimiento Sin Tierra con la sociedad en general, de modo a amplificar el ejercicio de la ciudadanía, que podría considerarse insurgente en la concepción de Holston (2013).

Palabras clave
Periodismo de la tierra; La ciudadanía; Comunicación; La reforma agraria; Medios de Comunicación; Educación

Introduction

The Undergraduate Earth Journalism Course was created, justly, to attend the demand presented by the settlers of the agrarian reform, who are the beneficiary of the land distribution, in a concession system, by the Brazilian state, aiming, formed by journalists, to guarantee the access of the rural population, on settlement areas, a communication in tune with the interests of the settler of the agrarian reform.¹

It was offered, to a single group, due to an agreement between the Federal Universty of Ceará and the Ministry of Agrarian Development (represented by INCRA/Ceará), to sixty settlers of the agrarian reform from twenty-two states of Brazil and from the Federal District, depending on approval on the entrance exam. This way, the course reached, directly, sixty settlers²; and, indirectly, a public of 300 throughout the country, through the undergraduation work that the graduated started to develop in the states and in other settlement, having as a perspective the attendance of, approximately, five settlers per student.

The Communication Bachelor course, with graduation in Earth Journalism, that happened in the period between 2010 to 2013, graduated forty five of the sixty who started. Likewise, through a National Program of Education for the Agrarian Reform (PRONERA), created in 1998, by the Federal Government, and other public politics, around four thousand students joined the undergraduate course, through a partnership with at least one hundred undergraduate courses. PRONERA proposes and supports educational projects focused on the development of agrarian reform areas, where the target audience is composed by young people and adults of the settlement projects created by INCRA³

These public politics allowed the teaching of around four thousand undergraduate educators, in areas of agrarian reform. Apart from educators, the settlers are working spaces to around 200 agricultural technicians, vets and agronomists responsible for the technical assistance, social workers and, now, journalists. This way, though in absolute values, the sixty vacancies opened by the Earth Journalism course were still not enough, for the professional demand and education, its real impact was meaningful, given the pioneering of the course, to ease the flaws in the internal communication amongst the settlers, and those with the rest of society. The undergraduate professional started to work with the communication media in the settlement, mainly in the community radio stations that operate within the settlement, as well as performing activities related to communication inserted within the struggle process of the settlers, or, even, in political positions highlighted in the internal organization of the MST.

The professional journalist, trained for community and agrarian areas, has better conditions of developing means and own forms of communication that favors sociability of the settled families, improving the communication internal flow and the dialogue of these communities with where they have been placed. Their work, associated to the existent structures, such as their own school and technical assistance, mutually foments these activities and allow the social development of these communities, from the “freirean” principle that through communication that human beings become people (FREIRE, 1983).

Considering the Brazilian political, social, economic and educational reality, emphasizing the agrarian matter, living in a semi-arid area and in need of a development of a crop field, that ensures their economic, social, environmental and democratic sustainability of the peasant people, this project objectified the comprehension of Communication, its work organization and its function as an institution inserted in the historical, social and cultural context, searching action alternatives in the construction of a good quality Communitarian Communication for all, with the possibility of the rescuing and the establishment of social-economic and environmental relations for the living in the semi-arid area; enabling communicator from settlement areas, graduated, to the exercise of the Earth Journalism.

The struggle for the access to education demonstrates that the landless workers want to increase the exercise of citizenship, which cannot be solely reduced to, political citizenship:

(...) The political democracy is not enough to guarantee civil and social citizenship and to produce a democratic state by right. Having neither of these elements, the use of the democratic citizenship continues ineffective, and the political democracy loses its legitimacy as a way of government. Therefore, the problem of the narrow political conceptions of democracy is that they cannot analyze its own contradictions that characterize the contemporary democratic processes around the world and that undermine political democracies that in fact exist. (...). (HOLSTON, 2013, p.298 – our translation),

In Brazil, a differentiated citizenship has always predominated (HOLSTON, 2013) and affected the political, social and civil rights according to the social position.

In many nations, Independence and a republican government sign the development of movements for equal rights, but the beginning of the Republic in Brazil marked the beginning of even bigger disparities amongst its citizens. As a result, the majority of the Brazilians had unequal citizenship rights during the centuries under a colonial, imperial and republican regimen. This extraordinary persistence of mass inequality characterizes all the aspects of citizenship, not only the political ones, and affects not only the society but also the State. The Brazilian people captured the greatness of this inequality in a succinct way in an aphorism: “Brazil is a land without people and a people without land” (HOLSTON, 2013, p.155 – Our translation).

Education: Priority in the Landless Movement

The settlers offered to the agrarian reform a larger comprehension than the simple land distribution. The agrarian reform began to be understood as a set of policies that allowed a decent and quality life on the field. It is in this context, that have been inserted actions such as National Program of Education for the Agrarian Reform – PRONERA; but also, the demand to qualify the communication actions of the Landless workers, many times criminalized or discriminated by the media.

This way the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) proposed the creation of a Bachelor Degree in Communication (Journalism qualification) – Program for the education of Field Communicators/ (EARTH JOURNALISM), providing its resources and teachers, students and technical-administrative, to contribute with the graduation of journalists who were in the field, in agrarian reform areas.

There were approximately 1.620 settlement created by INCRA until 1999, in the north-East. The education of journalists in these settlements, was a challenge assumed by the UFC in partnership with INCRA/Ceará, to guarantee the communicator struggle in defense of a continuing education for the exercise of Communication, as well as proposing an adequate education to the characteristics and challenges of a specific field reality.

The construction of the Project of the Earth Journalism Course happened on a dialogic perspective, with the collective participation of the settlers of the agrarian reform in all phases of the process and based on their concrete reality:

Education, on the contrary, instead of being a knowledge transference – what makes it almost “dead” –, is a gnoseologic situation on a broader meaning.

That is why the educator´s task is not to be seen as a cognizant subject facing a cognizant object to, after getting to know him, speak about him discursively to his students, who role would be to file all his notifications.

Education is communication, is dialogue, as long as it is not a knowledge transfer, but an encounter of interlocutor subjects who are in search for the meaning of meanings (FREIRE, 1983, p.46 – our translation).

The subject object of education builds to itself at the same time it integrates to its concrete reality. The possibility of the subject building itself, at the same time it integrates to the reality and produces himself as a historical subject is highlighted by Caldart (2004, p.332-333 – Our translation): “It has been like this forever. The social struggles have produced the historical transformations because they have conformed subjects capable of doing it and consolidated new life parameters in the society they have created”.

Steps of the Earth Journalism course

The project of the Earth Journalism course, since the elaboration process, was a result of a collective deed of INCRA Ceará, Federal University of Ceará team and the settled communities, each performing a fundamental role in bringing all these deeds to life.

Since August 2009, we have started a working process focusing on implementing the course, where partnerships were formed, meetings for the planning of the first teaching activities were held, the selection of university students for supporting activities of teaching and extension of teachers, with a specific knowledge Graduation and Post-Graduation degree, to teach in the project.

We specifically trained teachers and students, teaching them about the Earth Journalism course specificities, the reality of the settlers of the agrarian reform, the need to use new motivational teaching and learning techniques and the introduction of new dynamics that could bring innovative forms of content learning and reflection about themes used in the course.

Students and teachers who took part in the project were selected according to the Pronera and UFC norms. The subjects were taught by staff teachers and specialized teachers contracted through a simple selective process, that consisted in CV analysis and interviewing. The university students, who supported the deeds with the students, came from a regular graduation in Social Communication, with a Journalism qualification.

Planning and evaluation meetings with the teachers

At the beginning of the third and the fourth steps, in 2011, we had fifty one of the sixty enrolled students who started the course. At the beginning of the fifth step, in December 2011, this number fell down to fifty students. In 2012, we had another five departures along the fifth and the sixth step.

Of the sixty students that started the course, 45 to the end. The fifteen who gave up had to abandon the course because they had left the Landless Movement, making it impossible their continuity, as only the settlers named by organized institutions could take the course.

For the planning of the activities throughout all steps, we counted on the participation of the team and partners, aiming calendar definition, activities location, subjects and seminars to be held, organization of the school time⁴ and community time⁵, teaching activities locations, laboratories rosters and other activities.

As for the teaching planning (content selection, choice and production of the didactic material, definition of methodological procedures and evaluation), the pedagogic team has held many meetings, to structure the entire working scheme throughout all steps of the course.

The university students, under supervision of the pedagogic team and the general coordination of the course, made the planning for the monitoring of the teacher activities in the classroom during school time, with permanent student advisory, including out of class, with two extra daily hours of supervised study and studying at the lodging where they were located or within the University premises.

Still aiming for the education of the university students and team members, a deep and investigative study was made on themes connected to Earth Journalism, as well as the relationship between the media and land questions, in the Media, Culture and Politics Research Group⁶, that used to meet a fortnight, debating university works related to this study field.

Apart from that, also made part of the Media, Culture and Politics Group, the students of the Masters in Communication, linked to the line of research Media and sociocultural Processes, that develop work connected to the relationship between the media, social movements and citizenship.

Throughout the course, specially, during the two halves of 2013, we worked the deepening of many themes related to Communication and watched to presentation of many monographs, Master dissertations, collective researches and Post-Doctorate university works⁷, involving themes connected to the settlers of the agrarian reform.

Development of the curricular proposal

The curricular proposal for this course had as starting point the interests and the reality of the many settlements of the states involved, around the country. To better serve this reality, the course was organized from thematic axis, articulating the contents, which were distributed within many curricular activities, contextualized and integrated, in an interdisciplinary and transversal curricular perspective.

The main guides of this proposal were: the comprehension of Communication as a human and historical practice, involving in its dynamics the broader social relations, as well as the ones made on a local level; as a social practice, the Communication should enable the access to knowledge, allowing acting in a creative and reflexive way; Communication contributes, still, for individual and collective emancipation, establishing stronger equal relations, producing and democratizing knowledge; access to popular and scientific knowledge should be done through a dialogic process, in which teachers and students are subjects in the production of new knowledge; the construction of a communicational practice that prioritizes the Brazilian agrarian question, being this the driver of the whole course, relating it to a broader communicational question; the theory had as a reference the social practice, critically recreating it; the relation research- education-extension allowed the confront of the content of the Course with the communicational reality, contributing for the education of Earth Journalists.

The curricular completion of the course, as well as the regular Journalism, had a predicted time of four years or eight semesters, completing a total of 3184 hours with a total of a 199 credits, in which 166 were mandatory and 20 elected, and more ten credits in complementary activities. The Experimental Projects of the Journalism course – Monograph or Journalistic Production, that were the completion coursework, should be made in the last two semesters of the course, in the subjects of Experimental Project I and II. The Experimental Project I, with 96 hours and the Experimental Project II, with 208 hours.

Apart from the subjects offered to the regular Journalism course, where the content was adapted, when possible, to the deepening of the communicational processes that could improve the exercise of Communication by the settlers, the curricular structure inserted some optional subjects focused directly to the settlers’ needs, with the duration of 64 hours, throughout the course, such as: Community Radio Workshop, Video Workshop, Special Topics on Communication and Special Topics on Agrarian Reform Communication.

One of the biggest contributions of the course was the incentive to the Community Communication that stimulates the exercise of citizenship:

(...) Community communication is characterized by communication processes based in public principles, like not making profit, incite the active participation of the population, to have a collective propriety and disseminate contents with focus on education, culture and the broadening of citizenship. Includes the technological means and other modalities on the expression channel under the control of the movements and social non-profit organizations. Last case scenario, it is given the right to communication in the perspective of the access to the communication channels. It is not only the citizen´s right to information, as a receptor – very present when talking about the Media -, but the right to the access to the communications means in the condition of issuer and diffuser of contents, providing the constitution of educommunication processes, contributing, this way, to the development of the citizenship exercise (PERUZZO, 2006, p.9-10 – our translation).

At the same time, the Earth Journalism course was committed to the empowerment of the settlers of the agrarian reform of the Landless Movement:

Empowerment means an active popular participation with the power to control and decide the social projects (public policies related to education, health, transport, genre questions, means of income), and, also, the communication means. The current challenge is to advance with the qualitative and broad empowerment of the new communication technologies (PERUZZO, 2006, p.10 – Our translation).

Furthermore, we are led by the principles of the Liberating Group Communication. The systematization of the phases or steps that define the liberating communication proposed by Terrero (1988, p.108-109) shows the group as an encouraging element. Next moment, the message-means provides a reality approach. Next phase, the given problem is discussed, reflected upon it, and given a certain degree of consciousness. All of this through dialogue. Liberating actions are taken, related to the problem given. The whole process is evaluated to avoid repeated mistakes and advance.

When describing the liberating group communication as a process (TERRERO, 1988), we try to unveil the elements that unlock the group education: exploitation leads to organization. The goal of the group, so, would be to combat this exploitation. A liberating group goes through many steps in the constitution process: in the first step, the groups appear as a need that every person has in having a relationship with their neighbors, leaders and other communities. In the second step, the groups self-determine through their objectives. And, in the third step, the groups project themselves through their actions, which aims the materialization of their objectives.

We could classify the liberating group communication as a practice of community communication, according to Paiva (2003, p.48 – our translation):

Within a community communication scheme – those not only oriented by a purely corporative logic, but mainly by group or communal determination – what matters more are the objectives and commitment between parts, to reach programmed goals, than the use of any communication system.

In the specific formulation of these contents, the Academic Project of the Course had decided and consistent humanistic perspective. Even technology, with a transforming dimension existent at the present, received a treatment that made their comprehension of the student go beyond the utilitarian aspects and reach the interactions between Communication and culture, politics, economy and agrarian reform.

The pedagogical proposal, monitoring rules determined by PRONERA, was substantiated by two types of procedures, one in each curricular unit: an intensive period, in the classroom (school time) and out of the classroom (community time), as a form of work driven and executed in their own community.

The time in the classroom (school time) consisted of an intensive moment with the direct presence of the students, where they participated of a group of organized activities (class, workshop, organization, work…), according to the methodological proposal of each step and the curricular units predicted. This time in the classroom was made of seventy percent of the hours/class foreseen in each semester´s disciplines, having as a fundamental didactic procedure the dialogic perspective. The students used the space and infra-structure of the Journalism Course of UFC for teaching and didactic activities.

Work techniques were used in small groups, plenaries, collective expositions, readings and debate, researches and practical activities. The addressed themes, in many areas of knowledge, were studied in depth from the readings of the scientific and cultural production of the teachers of UFC, as well as settlers from the agrarian reform, who were asked to contribute by donating books to the constitution of a support library to the study groups/Core training groups.

The time out of the classroom (community time) consisted of thirty percent of the hours/class foreseen for each semester. This moment was a return time and direct action of the students in the daily life of the settlements, working in the curricular units in an interdisciplinary perspective, integrated to activities in the organizations where they are engaged, according to planning, articulating the theory of education with practice. This out of classroom work was developed within the student’s community and was followed by teachers and university students. At the end of each semester, the students presented a written and/or recorded production as a result of this learning.

Following the recommendations by students, teachers and scholarship students, from the fourth step, the school time was increased from thirty to forty five days, which has given more time for readings and university works, rushing a little less the didactic activity, as pointed by the students, at the end of the school time of this step.

A remarkable element of the school time in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth steps of the course was the attainment of the extension activities which complemented the education of the students. Seminars, lectures and workshops had the participation of the students of the Earth Journalism Undergraduate Course that, with the increasing of the steps, coincided with the regular course activities of the Humanity Centre, enabling a greater exchange with the other students of UFC. Furthermore, the students were benefited with having the Library which generally, closes part of the holidays, borrowing books and frequenting university environments.

The last phase, which happened from January to May 2014, was the reviewing of the completion of coursework, helped by the advisors and the coordination, and sent to the library, to provide to society the access to the university works.

Register system, monitoring and assessment

The attendance was followed by the teachers and the students were assessed throughout all subjects, presenting courseworks that were appreciated on school time and other university works performed during community time, which were also corrected and assessed by the teachers, being the grades added to the final sum.

There was also a test retake process. This helped those students who did not get enough grades to be approved. For this, the students counted on the monitoring of the test retake time, performed simultaneously with the monitoring of the school time of the students that did not need to retake the tests. The teachers and monitors would take turns, sometimes helping the recovering students, sometimes helping the students who had doubts about their school time course works from each step.

From this assessment, it is perceived that there was an intellectual progress of the students, where the appropriation of the scientific knowledge contributed, to substantiate their political education and techniques in Earth Journalism and for the improvement of the Communication activities in the settlements in general, either in the internal or external communication, with the rest of society.

Completion courseworks

With the objective of analyzing the contribution of the Undergraduate Earth Journalism Course against the process reflections of internal and external communication in the settlements, we did a content analysis of the forty five completion courseworks that were produced by students. We have used a content analysis method that intends to “obtain the systematic and objective describing procedures of the content of the indicator messages (quantitative or not) that allow the interference of knowledge related to production/reception conditions (inferred variables) of these messages” (BARDIN, 2011, p.46 – our translation).

These courseworks were of a more practical character (radio or audio-visual documentaries, podcasts, news-books, websites, newspapers), or more theoretical (monographs) and fitted in some groups, according to its specific objectives. After material analysis, we identified nine groups which courseworks were classified according to the addressed theme: courseworks related to conflict situations between MST and society; comprehension of the internal communication within the settlements; alternative communication products, showing the settlements option for agroecology, the struggles and the historical, political and cultural trajectory of MST; themes related to natural phenomena or nature intervention projects and its implications; courseworks that portray MST’s specific fights in their conquest and the historical path of some settlements; courseworks about the creation of schools in the settlements, courseworks about projects involving settlers of the Movement of the affected by dams (MAB); courseworks about alternative communication experiences in the society; and one coursework about the Earth Journalism Undergraduate Course.

In the first group, four⁸ monographs refer to the analysis of the media’s journalist covering about conflict situations between the MST and society: the monograph, for example, “The “quilombo” of the Macacos river (BA): the silencing and invisibility of bahia’s press”, by Ana Iris Nogueira Pacheco, analyses from the hegemonic speech of the newspaper Correio da Bahia, the covering of the conflict between the Quilombo Macacos River and the Brazilian Navy.

To observe the form in which the newspaper (belonging to a political communication conglomerate) builds its speech about the conflict, we used material published by the newspaper about this situation (articles, notes, reports, reading letters between the period of March and August 2012 (PACHECO, 2013, p.7 – our translation).

The second group of courseworks aimed at for the comprehension of the internal communication within the settlements, improving of the means of communication they had and to make easier the internal communication within the movement and between it and society, In this group eight⁹ courseworks reflected about the media experience in the settlements, mainly of communal radios, and helped the process of improvement of the radio schedule; contributing, at the same time, on the building of initiatives, to broaden the participation of the settlers on the communal radio activities.

One example of this group is the monograph “Communal Communication in the Lagoa do Mineiro radio: Construction processes of communicational practices in the MST” by Felipe Melo de Sousa is a reflection about communal communication and has as the object the radio station Lagoa do Mineiro FM, located in the settlement of the same name in the town of Itarema/CE-Brazil:

(...) we realize that the manner how the families organize themselves and express their cultural values will be very complex. Their relationship with the communication vehicles that has as a goal the developing of a mobilization role within the settlement, varies from people who criticize the radio and see only their limits, to those who don’t realize that, many times the Lagoa do Mineiro FM, reproduce communication models (SOUSA, 2013, p.6 – our translation).

These courseworks of the second group produced reflections that evaluated harshly these activities, pointing out wrongs and rights, contributing for the correction of the directions of these alternative communication experiences within the settlements, constituting a fundamental contribution to the improvement of the internal communication amongst the settlers and between them and society.

The third group of courseworks ¹⁰ is composed of alternative products, showing the settlements option for agroecology, the struggles and the historical, political and cultural trajectory of MST.

An example of this group is the photoshoot “Family agriculture documentary: images about the production of the Rosário settlement, by Hildebrando Silva de Andrade, about the production of the settlement P. A Rosário, located in Ceará Mirim, Rio Grande do Norte.

I have opted for this method because of the viability of showing the productive activities in this area and by the intimacy created with photography throughout the course. Another reason, also, would be to have the register of the productive activities which the popular media does not show and when it shows it is only to negatively criticize it. (ANDRADE, 2013, p.7 – our translation).

The courseworks of the third group contributed to the elaboration of MST’s internal performance policies, showing pioneering experiences developed within the settlements, in the agroecological field, in the cultural area, apart from the specific struggle within the settlements developed by the MST.

In a fourth group, we have identified the choice of themes related to the natural phenomena or intervention projects and its implications¹¹. An example of this group is a multimedia product, with the production of a website and podcasts: website analysis and blog construction: “Telecenter as a working environment, relaxation and social integration in multimedia support”, de Raquel da Luz Araújo de Souza and Francisco de Assis dos S. Soares.

The research had as a worrying object the study of how and why the telecenter is used, how the telecenter provides the digital inclusion in the 17 de abril settlement and to analyze how the telecenter allows the social interaction (SOUZA E SOARES, 2013, p.8 – our translation).

In this fourth group, the projects developed by the federal government addressed in the courseworks were presented and contributed to the reflections generated about the result of these initiatives, helping the comprehension of the transformations which the settlers were submitted to.

In a fifth group, we found courseworks that portray specific MST fights in their land conquering and the historical trajectory of some settlements¹².

There are, in the sixth group, two courseworks that expatiate about the creation of new schools in the settlements: “The teaching of youngsters and adults in the Novo Horizonte settlement”, by Eliane de Souza Saraiva; and the newspaper “Jornal Escola em Movimento”, by Geani Paula de Souza da Rosa and Riquieli Capitani.

Other two courseworks, in the seventh group, with themes related to the Hit by Dams Movement (MAB), that are the settlers who were removed from their land and transferred to other locations due to dam constructions: the newspaper “Jornal dos Atingidos em Luta”, by Mércia Vieira Fernandes; and the audiovisual documentary “A Voz dos Atingidos”, by nelsina Gomes neta.

Another two courseworks, in the eighth group, about Alternative Communication experiences, involving two other organized sectors of the society collaborated for the comprehension of the MST of diverse experiences in this area and of the links of these experiences with the actions of the movement: The radio documentary “Rede Tucum”, by Eliana Leite Martins Farias, and the audiovisual documentary “The occupation of the MTST in the suburbs of Fortaleza and the relation with the MST”, by Carlos Silva.

There was, still, one single coursework in the ninth group; a radio documentary about the “Earth Journalism Undergraduate Course”, by Ramiro Olivier de Souza, which reflected on the contribution of the course to the perfecting of the internal communication in the MsT and between the Movement and society.

The themes involved in the students’ conclusion courseworks were very specific, mostly, about the struggle of the MST and, in particular, when talking about the use of alternative means of Communication, to perfect the communication between its members and with society.

In this sense, the Earth Journalism Undergraduate Course was a contribution to the deepening of the democratic living and to the exercise of an insurgent citizenship:

The same forces which fragmented and dominated the peasants, reducing their existence to “mere lives”, incite the urban poor to demand a life of a citizen. However, it is not in the factory or in the union’s offices or voting that they articulate their demands with more strength and originality. It is in the oikos domain, in the household, taking form in the most remote suburbs around the self-construction of the houses. It is an insurgence that begins with the struggle to a rightfully city life as a respected citizen. The same way, their demands for a new citizenship way are conceived with housing, real estate, plumbing, nurseries, security and other aspects of daily life. Their leaders are “mere citizens” of the entrenched regimen: women, labor workers, slum dwellers, illiterate people and, above all, those from families who don´t own their houses and can barely secure a piece of land in a region distant from the elite centers. These are citizens who, during the process of constituting their new residential spaces, don’t only construct a great and new city as much as, on this foundation, constitute a polis with a different citizenship order (HOLSTON, 2013, p.401 – our translation).

Final considerations

Throughout the evaluation process of the course, it has been noticed an intellectual progress of the students, which the appropriation of the scientific knowledge contributed, to substantiate their political and technical education in the area of Earth Journalism and for the general improvement of the Communication activities condition in the settlements.

Many stimulating pedagogical techniques have been used, privileging the participation and the critical posture of the students. It was tried, from the beginning, to connect the research activities and social insertion of the students to the communicational reality of the settlements.

On the evaluation made by the course coordination, we could find from students’ testimonies that the knowledge obtained on the course were applied in the communication work within the settlements, as long as the students were learning about new dynamics of communicative production, making it easier the integration between its members and helping the diffusion of information.

The most applied knowledge were those focused on the perfectioning of the existing Communication vehicles within the settlements. Furthermore, the students who already acted in the communication area started to perform these activities professionally.

Another extremely positive aspect, in the final evaluation process of the Earth Journalism Undergraduate Course, was to find out that the teachers, university students, pedagogic supervision and coordination staff made the effort to make sure all the activities planned were done, always trying to use innovative pedagogic techniques¹³, getting involved with research and extension and deepening their knowledge about the relation between the media, citizenship, social movements and the land in question.

The course was approved by UFC, to be executed in a single group, and there is no forecast for a new group. The settlers were consulted about the opening of a new group, explained that there was not enough demand to begin a new course at that moment.

Without a doubt, the internal communication of the Movement was perfected with the contribution of the students who concluded the course reflecting on the communication experiences in their own settlements or within society, making communication products and also by the work of some of the new professionals in internal communication organs within the settlements or in the MST, being that communal radios, newspapers, press office, etc. The work of these new professionals is also echoing in the improvement of communication of the settlers with society.

In this sense, the Earth Journalism course’s main objective was the broadening of the citizenship exercise that Holston (2013) defines as insurgent and that, in Brazil, was always tagged by differentiation, living a life of unequal political, social and civil rights by the excluded population, inclusive the Landless workers. It is now the duty of the earth journalists to proceed in their mission of opening new ways that broaden the citizenship exercise, as long as they keep struggling for the recognition of their rights.

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  The settlers are rural workers who receive a piece of land, supplied by the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), to explore its sustainability, using exclusively family labour. The benefited cannot sell, rent, donate, lease or lend their land to third parts. Until the moment a definite scripture of the piece of land given, the settlers and the land will be linked to INCRA. Source: http: www.incra.gov.br. Accessed on 19.09.2016.
• 2
  The students of the course Earth Journalism came from the following settlement.: settlement novo Horizonte, Ceará; settlement Mártires de Abril, PA; settlement Carlos Lamarca, São Paulo; settlement 40-45, Goiás; Itaituba, Pará; Fazenda Pirituba Agrovila I; settlement Mártires de Abril, Pará; settlement Palmares, Ceará; settlement santa Bárbara, Ceará; settlement Olga Benário, Paraná; settlement Januário Moreira, Pernambuco; settlement Comuna da Terra Irmã Alberta, são Paulo; settlement Contestado, Paraná; settlement Milton santos, São Paulo; settlement São Sebastião da Utinga, Bahia; settlement Lucas Dantas, Bahia; settlement Imperatriz, Maranhão; settlement Marrecas, Piauí; settlement 29 de maio, Ceará; settlement Flores, Ceará; settlement são Manoel, Ceará; Erechim, rio Grande do sul; settlement Normandia, Pernambuco; settlement P.A. Lenin Paz II, Ceará; settlement Boa Esperança, Rio de Janeiro; settlement Novo Alagamar, Ceará; settlement Coqueirinho, Ceará; settlement Lisboa, Piauí; settlement Palmares, Ceará; settlement Madre Paulina, Pernambuco; settlement 17 de abril, Pará; settlement sabiaguaba, Ceará; settlement Vila Diamante, Maranhão; settlement Josué de Castro, Pernambuco; settlement Terra, Trabalho e Liberdade, Rio Grande do Norte; settlement Diamante Negro, Maranhão; settlement Lagoa do Mato Camara/Zumbi dos Palmares, Ceará; settlement Santa Rosa II, Paraná; settlement Lagoa do Mineiro, Ceará; settlement Santana, Ceará; settlement P.A Madre Cristina, Goiânia; settlement P.A Oziel Alves Pereira, Minas Gerais.
• 3
  Source:site http: www.incra.com.br. Accessed on 09.19.2016.
• 4
  School time or attendance period of, initially, thirty days, and from the fourth semester, forty five days, in which the students would see, in a condensed manner, in Fortleza, seventy percent of the content of the disciplines of the semester.
• 5
  Community Time is the rest of the semester in which the students would go back to the settlement and conclude the thirty percent of the course through working in other activities in consonance with the work on the fields.
• 6
  The study group Media, Cultura e Politica, coordinated by Professor Márcia Vidal Nunes and by the Professor Catarina Tereza Farias de Oliveira, counts with the participation of Professor Edgard Patrício de Almeida Filho all staff of the Post-Graduation Program in Communication of UFC, and also the presence of the university students of the Master Degree in Communication and Journalism undergraduate students, especially those of the subject Journalism on the third sector, that participated of the activities in an integrated effort between classroom, research and extension.
• 7
  Masters dissertations, supervised by Márcia Vidal Nunes, in the PPGCOM of UFC: Helena Martins do Rêgo Barreto. Communication and counter-hegemony; the communicative production as a political strategy of MST, 2010, bolsa Capes; Isabelle Azevedo Ferreira. Resistance and Project: the environmentalism on the construction of the identity of the movement of the Landless rural workers, 2014, bolsa Capes; Camila Chaves Ferreira. Between (No) Land and Borders: The dialogue as Tactics of the Movement, 2011, bolsa FUNCAP; Antônio Simões Menezes. Resintance Journalism: appropriation of the discursive strategies of the media field by Sem-Terra magazine. 2010. Research funded by CNPq, titled Community Media of the MST: analysis of the education process of the self portrait of the movement (2008-2009) and coordinated by Professors Catarina Tereza Farias de Oliveira and Márcia Vidal nunes. NUNES, Márcia V. Freedom Theology, mistic and MST: the role of a liberating group communication in the political organization of the movement. 1a. ed. FORTALEZA: Edições UFC, 2012. 124p. OLIVEIRA, Catarina. T. F. Communication, reception and memory in the Landless Movement: ethnography of the Itapuí/RS settlement. 1. ed. Fortaleza: Imprensa Universitária, 2014. 176p. Marilene de Oliveira Silva. settlement Francisco Océlio Alves: A study case of the social movements and Education in the field. 2009. Completion of coursework. (Graduação em Educação) – State University of Ceará. Advisor: Catarina Tereza Farias de Oliveira.
• 8
  The “quilombo” of the Macacos river (BA): the silencing and invisibility of bahia’s press, by Ana Iris nogueira Pacheco; Under the Vale train tracks in Pará: the social questions, the voice of the newspaper O Liberal and of the MST, by Viviane Pereira santa Brigida; Folha de São Paulo and the covering of the fight of the Milton Santos settlement, by Antonio Kanova Junior; and MST on the Diário do Nordeste: the journalistic covering of the occupation of MST in the rural development department in the year 1997, in Fortaleza, by Francisco Genivando santos de sousa.
• 9
  Reception Study: Appropriation of the information of the Alô Litoral program in the Lucas Dantas settlement by Wesley Oliveira Lima; 25 de maio radio: women’s participation in the communication experience in the settlement, by Maria Sheila Rodrigues do Nascimento; Communication: April’s journey, camped, by Rozana Maria da Conceição; The audiovisual documentary of Antônio Carlos Costa Luz, Communal radio as an instrument for transformation: Resistência FM communal radio experience in Belém do Pará; The relevance of Lagoa Grande FM radio 88,7 for the Madre Paulina settlement, radio-documentary by Andreia Nunes; Communal Communication on the lagoa do mineiro radio station: construction process of the communicational practices in the MST, by Felipe Melo de Sousa; Internet and the use of the MST/RJ report card of the MST in Rio de Janeiro (2011), by Rafael Bonfim Miranda; and Communication and religion: building relationships in Vila Diamante, by Carlos Magno Sirqueira and Cosme de Jesus Sousa Araújo.
• 10
  In this group, the following courseworks are found: newspaper Jornal do MST, by Neuber Josélio Amador; the radiophonic documentary Memory and Movement of the Cultural Manifestations in the Marrecas a Lisboa settlement from 1989 until today, by Ioneide nunes da silva and Marilene Nascimento de Araújo; the analysis of the website The Movement of rural Landless workers and the experience of the Samba School Unidos da Lona Preta website, by Silvana Bezerra da Silva; and the news report book Cultural Manifestation in the MST, by Aparecida da silva and Magnólia Fagundes da silva, oriented by Klycia Fontenelle, who addresses A Folia de Reis and the Cavalcate of MST.
• 11
  As members of this group we have the News report book The repercussion of the transposition of the São Francisco river in Petrolândia, by Maria Genilda da Rocha Teixeira; and the radio documentaries The draught in the North East, by Francisco Marcelo Matos da Silva, Cleucivânia Ribeiro and Tiago Pereira; and the Construction of the Hydroelectric Binacional Complex Garabi and the impacts to the affected population, by Neudicleia Neres Oliveira and Fábio Luís Reis; the monograph about the Hydroelectric Complex Tapajós: the development discourse of the federal government on the communication products of the Tapajós dialogue, by Cleidiane Vieira.
• 12
  In this group are: the radio documentar of Antônia Maria Bezerra and Pedro Ferreira de Oliveira Neto, The story of the fight for the agrarian reform within the Palmare settlement; the audio visual documentary: The story of the fight for the land in the resistance community of Boqueirão/Sobral-CE, by Antonia Aline Costa de Oliveira and Lucilene Nascimento da Luz Silva and Samuel do Nascimento silva; the áudio visual documentary The story of a fight – Chapada Diamantina, by Roque Reis dos Santos and Romilson Joaquim de souza; and the work, by reynaldo da silva Costa, the radio documentary Stories about the state protest march for agrarian reform, employment, housing and justice – 1997- Maranhão.
• 13
  The participative communication techniques and group dynamics made the classes more attractive and participative, providing a better learning and on the broadening of the level of critical reflexion of the students in relation to the reality surrounding them.

Referências

• ANDRADE, Hildebrando S. Relatório Técnico Ensaio Fotográfico “Agricultura Familiar em Documentário: Imagens sobre a produção do assentamento”. Fortaleza, 2013. 24f.
• BARDIN, Laurence. Análise de conteúdo 4. ed. Lisboa: Edições 70, 2011. 281p.
• CALDART, Roseli. S. Pedagogia do Movimento sem Terra São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2004. 440 p.
• FREIRE, Paulo. Extensão ou comunicação? 7.ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1983. 93 p.
• HOLSTON, James. Cidadania insurgente – Disjunções da democracia e da modernidade no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Companhia das Letras, 2013. 498 p.
• PACHECO, Ana Iris N. Trabalho de conclusão de curso: O quilombo Rio dos Macacos (BA): silenciamento e invisibilidade na imprensa baiana. Fortaleza, 2013. 127f.
• PAIVA, Raquel. O espírito comum – Comunidade, mídia e globalismo 2. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Maud, 2003.
• PERUZZO, Cicilia M.K. Revisitando os conceitos de comunicação popular, alternativa e comunitária. In: XIX Congresso Brasileiro de Ciências da Comunicação – Intercom, 2006. Anais Brasília, set. 2006.
• SOARES, F.de Assis dos S.; SOUZA, Raquel da Luz A. Telecentro como ambiente de trabalho, descontração e integração social em suporte multimidia 2013. 56 f. Trabalho de conclusão de curso de Jornalismo da Terra – UFC, Fortaleza.
• SOUSA, Felipe M. Comunicação comunitária na rádio Lagoa do Mineiro: processos de construção das práticas comunicacionais no MST 2013. 49f. Trabalho de conclusão de curso de Jornalismo da Terra – UFC, Fortaleza.
• TERRERO, José M. Comunicação grupal libertadora São Paulo, Paulinas, 1988.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Sep-Dec 2016

History

• Received
  17 May 2016
• Accepted
  17 Sept 2016