“Especial Globo 50 anos”: from the remembrance of mediated historicity

Abstract

In 2015, on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, “Rede Globo” developed programs that aimed to recall its institutional trajectory. One such program was entitled “Globo Special 50 years” and made a retrospective of the main sectors of the station. The following article proposes, therefore, to analyze the program in order to understand how the memorial narrative reaffirmed the place of importance of the station and highlighted a legacy before its recipients. In order to meet these objectives, a methodological analysis of the “audiovisual materiality analysis” and the term “mediated historicity” proposed by Thompson was used. The results showed that the anniversary of the institution was fundamental for the construction of a process of recollection that materialized through a range of programs. These, in particular the analyzed program, defined a place in History, as merit, occupied and resignified by the transmitter.

Keywords
Audiovisual; Memory; Recollection; Mediated historicity; Rede Globo

Resumo

Em 2015, na ocasião de seu cinquentenário, a Rede Globo desenvolveu programas que visavam a rememorar sua trajetória institucional. Um desses programas foi intitulado de “Especial Globo 50 anos” e fez um retrospecto dos principais setores da emissora. O artigo que se segue propõe, dessa forma, analisar o programa a fim de perceber como a narrativa memorialística reafirmou o lugar de importância da emissora e ressaltou um legado perante seus receptores. Com o propósito de atender a esses objetivos utilizou-se metodologicamente da “análise da materialidade audiovisual” e do termo “historicidade mediada” proposto por Thompson. Os resultados alcançados demonstraram que o aniversário da instituição foi fundamental para o constructo de um processo de rememoração que se materializou por meio de uma gama de programas. Estes, em especial o programa analisado, definiram um lugar na História, enquanto mérito, ocupado e ressignificado pela emissora.

Palavras-chave
Audiovisual; Memória; Rememoração; Historicidade Mediada; Rede Globo

Resumen

En 2015, en la ocasión de su cincuentenario, la Red Globo desarrolló programas que pretendían rememorar su trayectoria institucional. Uno de esos programas fue titulado de “Especial Globo 50 años” e hizo una retrospectiva de los principales sectores de la emisora. El siguiente artículo propone analizar el programa para percibir cómo la narrativa conmemorativa reafirmó el lugar de importancia de la emisora y subrayó un legado ante sus receptores. Con el propósito de atender a esos objetivos se utilizó metodológicamente del “análisis de la materialidad audiovisual” y del término “historicidad mediada” propuesto por Thompson. Los resultados alcanzados demostraron que el aniversario de la institución fue fundamental para el constructo de un proceso de rememoración que se materializó a través de una gama de programas. Estos, en especial el programa analizado, definieron un lugar en la Historia, en cuanto mérito, ocupado y resignificado por la emisora.

Palabras clave
Audiovisual; Memoria; Recogimiento; Mediated historicidade; Rede Globo

Introduction

On April 26, 2015, Brazil’s largest television communications company, “Rede Globo,” celebrated its 50th anniversary. The context of its fiftieth anniversary allowed the broadcaster to produce a range of programs in order to highlight its importance to Brazilian society. One of these programs, “Especial Globo 50 Anos,” gave a retrospective of the trajectory of the station with a special narrated by journalists Pedro Bial and Fátima Bernardes. This was shown on a Saturday night, April 25, 2015, and all sectors of the station participated, especially personalities considered outstanding in its history.

The following text seeks to analyze the narrative of the program in light of the theoretical contribution of Thompson (2009), Nora (1995) and Barbosa (2006, 2016). These authors study the mediations that the media make of the past in light of other production contexts. In this way, what Thompson (2009) called mediated historicity is established, more precisely, how individuals relate to the past through the media.

As far as methodology is concerned, the Audiovisual Materiality Analysis proposed by Coutinho (2016) is used. Thus, considering this methodology and the theoretical basis cited, the program is analyzed to understand how remembrance serves as a privileged space for the broadcaster to dictate what should be remembered or forgotten regarding its institutional trajectory. Ultimately, it defines a place in history and mediates, as a consequence, its importance before the increasingly fragmented audience of contemporaneity.

“Especial Globo 50 anos”: the ephemeral and the construction of a symbolic place

Among its main characteristics, the program “Especial Globo 50 anos” aimed to portray the last five decades of the “Rede Globo” institution. Therefore, it was divided into sections, which showed the main products of soap operas, telejournalism, and entertainment. Clearly, the program sought to work on the concepts of authenticity, overcoming, and adaptability of the broadcaster during its years of existence.

The production context of the program, which was the year 2015, reflects the need for remembrance of contemporary Western societies (HUYSSEN, 2000). This necessity dates back to the end of the 20th century and is inserted in several sectors, from the boom in retro fads, to the mass marketing of nostalgia, and to the spread of memorial practices in the visual arts.

According to Lipovetsky and Charles (2004), the logic of this society is characterized by the birthplace of the “all-patrimony” and the “commemorative whole”. Even the smallest object of the past is celebrated, and traditions that are structured on contradictory bases are re-mobilized. This implies a present that does not stop digging up the past. “It is said jokingly that one museum a day opens in Europe and they have lost count of the anniversary celebrations of the great and not so great historical events” (LIPOVETSKY; CHARLES, 2004, p. 14). According to the author, what can be observed is the reign of infinity, which is excessive presentism in conformity with the displacement of memory to hyper memory. The latter is characterized as a desire for remembrance based on the unbridled search for roots and anchorage in ancient times.

In this context, the works of the past are no longer contemplated in recollection and silence, but devoured in seconds, functioning as an object of mass animation, an attractive spectacle, and a way to diversify leisure and kill time instantly. Above all, in contemporary society, the old and the nostalgic have become commercial arguments and marketing tools. “[...] They are part of a power-building process in which the political interest of dominating time assumes a primordial role” (BARBOSA, 2006, p. 18).

According to Huyssen (2000), it is no longer possible to think of any historical trauma as a serious ethical and political issue without considering the multiple ways in which it is now linked to commercialization and spectacularizing in movies, museums, docudramas, Internet sites, photography books, comic books, fiction, and even fairy tales and popular music. This dissemination of memory is broad, both geographically and politically, and can even be used, for example, as a mechanism of legitimization, in the “Americanization of the Holocaust” (HUYSSEN, 2000) or in the narrative discourse of the program it proposes to analyze.

In order to better understand the concept of memory, it is necessary to rely on the discussions established mainly by two authors: Halbwachs (2006) and Nora (1993). According to Halbwachs (2006, p. 33), “[...] to evoke one’s past, in general, one needs to resort to the memories of others, and one transports oneself to points of reference that exist outside oneself, determined by society”. Memory is seen by the author as a social fact that can be distinguished by behavioral patterns. This means that individual memory is tied to the various social groups that surround a person, as well as being the eventual combination of the different means from which the individual suffers influence.

However, there are reasons to distinguish two memories - one inside and the other outside, i.e., one personal memory and the other social memory.

[...] The first [inner memory] would receive help from the second [outer memory] since after all the history of our life is part of history in general. The second, of course, would be much more extensive than the first. On the other hand, it would only represent for us the past in a summarized and schematic form, while the memory of our life would present us with a much more continuous and denser panorama

(HALBWACHS, 2006, p. 34).

While Halbwachs (2006) emphasizes the incorporation of memories into history as they gradually cease to exist after the groups that supported them have disappeared, Nora (1993) defends what she calls “contemporary metamorphosis,” which means the inexistence of memory and its broad overlap with history.

According to Nora (1993, p. 7), “[...] so much is said about memory because it no longer exists”. This means that what we see in contemporaneity is the establishment of places of memory to incarnate them and keep them from possible oblivion. A society in which the fear of memory fragmentation leads to the domination of patrimony. For this reason, “[...] if we still inhabited our memory, we would not need to consecrate places to it” (NORA, 1993, p. 7).

With this in light, it is possible to notice that the production of the program “Especial Globo 50 anos” aimed to narrate the trajectory of the broadcaster as a way to safeguard memories threatened by the passage of time. In this way, the objective was to define memories in order to safeguard and reaffirm the performance of Rede Globo throughout its fifty years.

Another important point to realize is that discourses chronologically situated in the past build the present since “[...] the language that articulates and sustains memory, already in itself an inoculator of institutional values, is modeled to re-elaborate the past through the present” (MOTTER, 2001, p. 2). In this way, the remembrance program stimulates a national memory, which is not spontaneous. All the features, the omissions, and silence reveal mechanisms of manipulation of the collective memory.

Le Goff (1996, p. 141) summarizes these claims very well. According to him, “[...] becoming masters of memory and the forgotten is one of the great concerns of classes, groups, and individuals who have dominated or dominate historical societies. For this reason, from the moment that Rede Globo developed a program to show its institutional trajectory, the viewers who watched it had contact with a past recreated in the light of a production context, in all the complexity that this may represent.

In this context, contemporary companies have among their main concerns the preservation of their institutional path. Institutional memory centers are a relatively recent space, dating from the 2000s, and used mainly as a management strategy, potentially giving place to discourse guided by experience and tradition.

According to Pazin (2015), a memory center is a sector or unit of each institution that seeks to gather, organize, preserve and produce content from the institutional memory, using both historical documentation of the organization and the memory of its collaborators and other actors important to its institutional life. The documental aspect is only a part of the memorial information of an institution since it is also in people. A significant part of the work done in these centers is precisely to collect the memory of these people using various tools and recording methodologies, such as that of oral history, with interviews. This collection is also important because of its uses. This is because the memory preservation of an institution can be the repository from which it is possible to develop projects, services, and products.

Rede Globo has been developing the “Projeto Memória Globo” since the 1990s, marked by a series of initiatives of the communication companies of the Marinho family group, seeking to preserve the memory of the entities that comprise it. According to the broadcaster on its website, the members of the project did research and several interviews to obtain information. Among the results of the group’s work, the following stand out: (i) the “Dicionário da TV Globo”, which shows entries from the soap opera and entertainment sectors produced by the broadcaster, launched in 2003; (ii) the book “Roberto Marinho”, written by journalist Pedro Bial, which brings a biographical profile of the former owner of the company and journalist, who died in 2003; (iii) the book “Almanaque da TV Globo”, launched in 2006, with the main programs since its inauguration; (iv) the book “Jornal Nacional: a notícia faz história”, released in 2004, on the 35th anniversary of the news program; (v) the official website released on June 7, 2008, in commemoration of the 43 years of the broadcaster; and (vi) the book “Autores: histórias da teledramaturgia”, released at the end of 2008 with 16 of the broadcaster’s authors.

Besides these products, the broadcaster has also produced specials in celebration of its foundation anniversaries. Moreover, every year since 1967, it shows a retrospective program that seeks to highlight the ubiquitous presence of the station in various annual events. The cited publications and audiovisual products demonstrate that the memory preservation of the Globo group has enabled important market gains and the definition of a symbolic place in Brazilian society.

According to Pazin (2015), although the memory of an organization being used as an administrative strategy is a new idea, over the years it has been perceived as an important factor for the reputation of organizations since values and the institutional mission can be responsible for strengthening its image with the external public. Therefore, remembering the history of an institution, more than a current need, is a symbolic construction tool considered efficient and important, as demonstrated by Huyssen (2000) and Nora (1995).

Mediated Historicity

According to Thompson (2009), throughout human history and contexts, social interactions were face to face, that is, from proximity and exchanges within shared physical environments. These interactions were shaped by oral traditions that manifested themselves in a continuous process of renewal and reinvention through countless creative acts. Although open in content, they were restricted in terms of geographical scope. Thus, they depended on face-to-face interaction and physical dislocation of individuals.

However, since the 15th century, the development of the media has articulated new forms of action, interaction, and types of social relationships. The media promoted a complex reorganization of human interaction patterns through time and space. Thus, communication fostered interaction between individuals who did not share the same space-time environment, radically differentiating itself from the pre-existing model.

It was with the emergence of the press industry and, later, with the emergence of the various electronic means of communication, that the dissemination of mediated and almost mediated forms of interaction changed the characteristics of social life in the modern (or hypermodern) world, now full of interactions that have lost their immediate character.

In this way, television appears as a characteristic mark of almost-mediated interaction. Technically speaking, one of its achievements is its ability to use a large number of symbolic cues, both auditory and visual. According to Thompson (2009), individuals who communicate through TV can be seen acting within a specific space-time context.

In the almost-interaction provided by television, according to Thompson (2009), three groupings of coordinates (spatio-temporal production, spatio-temporal television message, and spatio-temporal reception contexts) are locked, what is called “spatio-temporal interpolation”. In this sense, when having contact with the television messages, the receiving individuals orient themselves daily to other spaces and times different from those that characterize their reception contexts. The author has called this process a discontinuous space-time experience.

Thus, mass media, especially television, introduce new and important elements into political and social life. They make images and information about events and places available to individuals far beyond their immediate social environments. This phenomenon demonstrates that the media is not only concerned with describing the social world, but is actively involved in its construction, shaping and influencing the course of events, and also creating events that might not have happened in its absence.

In this way, the media provides the individual with new experiences (mediated experiences), new meanings of belonging (mediated sociability), and meanings of the past (mediated historicity) (THOMPSON, 2009). It also offers symbolic resources that act as possibilities for the construction of knowledge about oneself. Before the media, one of the ways to obtain meanings for identity formation was face-to-face interaction. However, with the advance of the media and the press, information started to reach the individual through mediations.

The object of this article, the program “Especial Globo 50 anos”, is characteristic of the institutional concerns of contemporaneity and encourages society’s praise of the broadcaster. The program, as previously mentioned, chronologically presents the broadcaster’s performance over its 50 years. Its production reveals what Nora (1995) discusses in her text about the relationship between the media and historical construction. He states that historical events are the fruit of mediation by the media, which means that only what is made known through them becomes historical. “[...] Press, radio, images do not act as means from which events would be relatively independent, but as the very condition of their existence” (NORA, 1995, p. 181).

Thus, the mass media would be carriers of the meanings given to history, what Thompson (2009) called “mediated historicity,” that is, how people relate to past time and the interpretation and transmission of facts, especially through the media. According to Vicente,

[...] Massification and technological growth put face-to-face narratives and social interactions at risk as a result of this relationship. In this way, there is an increase in the transmitting time of past experiences, an increase that occurs due to the incorporation and exposure of people to the media and its contents. For this reason, Thompson believes that notions of time and space have transformed. People’s sense of belonging is now mediated by communication and by the facts it discloses (2009, p. 51).

At first, in a superficial observation of the object, it is possible to identify that “Rede Globo” sought to show its adaptation capacity, its Brazilianite, and its omnipresence in the homes of Brazilians. It also sought to show that it has to leave a legacy for posterity. In short, the broadcaster endeavored to highlight how historic it is for those who watch it.

This media quest for an important place in history is analyzed by Barbosa (2016). According to the author, the media generally produce a textual articulation based on the notion of testimony. Starting with the testimony, they make a version of the event with the pretension of being, since its construction, a kind of archive for history. In this way and according to her text, generally speaking, the media produces valid and widely recognizable narratives, inserting them in history.

Therefore, the program produced a narrative full of desires from the past and the construction of a legacy for posterity. The narrative is built to remain and be reused. Therefore, Rede Globo, in this perspective, wishes to be an archive of and for history. Thus, the memorable game that the media perform produces narratives for a place in history and not in memory. For this, according to Barbosa (2016, p. 22), “[...] they use memorable tricks in which fields of forgetfulness are formed in overlapping layers, to which a new layer is always added, and are constituted as an artifice of the narrative”.

The place occupied by the broadcaster

From the mentioned theoretical basis, the study will now aim to observe how the broadcaster, through the program “Especial Globo 50 anos”, tried to mediate the places it occupies concerning its audience. In particular, we seek to understand what is the historical place and what is the historical meaning that has been built by its narrative.

To meet these objectives, we used the methodology proposed by researcher Iluska Coutinho, presented and published in 2016. Her text was produced to make it possible to analyze the audiovisual and consider the particularities of its products: from the material and aesthetic dimension to the meanings that emerge from them (production and reception). The author called the method “Audiovisual Materiality Analysis”. In short, it consists of an analysis that does not perform decomposition operations that, according to her, would disfigure the enunciation and production of audiovisual senses. For this purpose, four steps are outlined below, in order to carry out the analysis.

First, it tries to identify the empirical object to be analyzed, given the research questions and its paratextual elements (peritext - that which comes before - and paritex - that which comes after its enunciation). The author also works, in this initial phase, with Veron’s “Reading Contract” (2004) and Jost’s “Promise” model (2007). In addition, before carrying out the analysis stage, it is important to recognize the meanings proposed by a given program or audiovisual product for its audience or for the media in which it is inscribed.

In a second moment, it is necessary to prepare a reading and evaluation sheet. The analysis is quali-quantitative, and the evaluation items that must be identified are: thematic, characterization of the sources of information, presence or absence of conflicting points of view, presence of art, among others.

Thirdly, the aim is to delimit the sample to be investigated, to then obtain, scan, and store it. According to the author, criteria such as representativity, exhaustiveness, availability, relevance to the objectives and parameters of the research, and the periodicity of production or transmission must be defined at this stage of the research.

In the actual phase of analysis, called the fourth stage, it is fundamental to make records that seek, through the perception and description of the obtained results, to make the characteristics of that product the objects of study and narrative. Moreover, it is also important to recognize the promises and the bonds assumed by each narrative.

The analysis of the program “Especial Globo 50 anos” was based on this methodological proposal and will follow the four procedures defined by the author. In the next pages, the results obtained in the observation of the above-mentioned program will be explained through this method.

Thus, this article proposes to answer two basic questions: (i) what places did “Rede Globo” intend to occupy through the program? (ii) what image does the broadcaster seek to establish with the program’s receptors?

To answer these questions, it is essential to understand that the analysis of a television program should not be based strictly on its broadcast product, but rather take into consideration what is said about it and in what context it was produced. This concern is one of the premises pointed out by Jost (2007), in a text that defends the promise model when studying audiovisual products. This model of analysis is defined as an agreement in which the sender and receiver acknowledge that they communicate and do so for shared reasons.

Another important issue pointed out by Jost (2007) is that genre is an interface which allows the connection between broadcaster and viewer. According to the author, genres contain two types of promise: an ontological promise (live broadcasts that bring the promise of more authenticity than other programs); and a pragmatic promise (which consists of the assignment made in advance by broadcasters when there is genre denomination). The concept of genre is therefore essential to the promise model, as it plays a role in television communication. The author points out that the genre allows TV to act within a viewer’s semantic frame. Another point to highlight is the power of information contained in the definition of a genre. There is also the notion of archiving.

Finally, it should be noted that genre determination is related to aspects of the regulation of television productions, which has strong economic repercussions. When a broadcaster determines in which category or classification its programs will be inserted, this determination does not happen impartially; it seeks to maximize value to the broadcasts. Thus, promises constitute marketing strategies for broadcasters, and they also seek to direct interpretation by their receivers with labels.

Finally, Jost (2007) emphasizes that the communicational relationship in the promise model happens in two moments. At first, the viewer accepts the promise of the television program, either to cry in the case of a drama, or to have fun in an auditorium program, or to have access to reality in a TV news program. In a second moment, the viewer will verify if the promise has been fulfilled. In general, this model requires the active participation of the viewer.

Specifically, regarding the program analyzed in this article, its adherence to the entertainment sector of Rede Globo can be seen at the end credits. However, even if the program is configured as a remembrance show, the narration is materialized in the speech of two renowned journalists of the broadcaster’s cast (Fátima Bernardes and Pedro Bial). It is important to define what this choice brings as consequences to the narrative since they are journalists narrating an entertainment program.

Is this an inconsistency on the part of the broadcaster or did the journalists occupy a fundamental discourse position in the constructed narrative?

According to Schuster (2016, p. 178),

[...] the subjects must be situated somewhere (which, a priori, is social) when the enunciative practice is carried out. They are holders of distinct roles and identities that will be imprinted on the discourse. During the establishment of a communicative act, a frame of reference is established supported by imaginary formations that give us the dimension of the places of each participant.

According to Pêcheux (2009), narrations change their meaning depending on the positions sustained by those who employ them. Thus, the social plane, which is represented by an empirical, institutional place and is permeated by power relations, arbitrates the discourse position. This means that the place is constitutive of the subject’s discourse. That is why, according to Schuster (2016), the discourse position of journalism is that of being able to say the things of the world. Besides, the place of the Brazilian press is, according to his studies, established as a neutral and impartial object. That’s why the narration of journalists in the “Especial Globo 50 anos” assumes a primordial role by giving to the narrated object the degree of objectivity, neutrality, and impartiality typical of journalistic activity. For a program that intends to recall the institutional trajectory of the broadcaster, the journalists’ speech attributes to the narrative a promise of credibility and truth.

Furthermore, using the promise model proposed by Jost (2004), it is necessary to attribute significance to the fact that the program is inserted in a moment of celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the station. What is the importance of this context? What is expected of a program that appears in this context?

Barbosa (2006, p. 14) says, “[...] without a doubt, commemorations constitute one of the multiplication strategies of practices aimed at the exercise of building the past, which produces a kind of expansion of the memorable field in contemporaneity”. Thus, for the author, remembrance uses the past in the present as a way of establishing memories per the logic of the production context. Moreover, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that to remember is to forget: “[...] memory is only possible after forgetting. Thus, to celebrate, before remembering, is to forget” (BARBOSA, 2006, p. 15).

Ricoeur (2007) considers forgetting as prevented memory, as manipulated memory, and as commanded forgetting. “If there is, therefore, a politically desirable memory, there is also a policy of public forgetting. A. Huyssen (2000) recalls, no political memory can function without forgetting” (BARBOSA, 2006, p. 16).

Answering the questions mentioned above, the production context allows the broadcaster to use the past as a way to establish a new social position and also to sediment its power as a historical agent, thus promoting a mediation of its historicity. “Even events worthy of remembrance, as is the case of those that need to be publicly commemorated, can be forgotten” (BARBOSA, 2006, p. 16). In this way, by commemorating the 50th anniversary, one remembers the positives and forgets all the demerits over years of existence.

The program has a total of 1h, 14min and 31sec. Using the methodology of audiovisual materiality analysis, the information was transcribed (speeches and elements considered important for the questions raised). Firstly, it is important to highlight the desire to mediate the place that Rede Globo occupies in history. In several moments, as we will point out, the narrative is made from and for History.

There are multiple ways to exalt themselves and their legacy. As an example, there is the statement of journalists who approach the foundation of the broadcaster as a historical milestone in the life of Brazilians.

Pedro Bial: “Very good evening! Welcome! Look, fifty years ago I was born here in Rio de Janeiro, near where we are, TV Globo, channel 4”. Fátima Bernardes: “Live and in black and white, on the morning of April 26, 1965, the newest TV station in the country was on the air. Carioca by birth, Brazilian by heart”. Pedro Bial: “A dream, or rather, the great bet of a 60-year-old man in love with information and in love with Brazil. The journalist Roberto Marinho. At the age when we are already thinking about retirement, he fought and we all won with fun and information”. Fátima Bernardes: “Today we will celebrate together these 50 years of emotion in series”. Pedro Bial: “Emotions that we share in journalism, soap operas, sports, life shows”. Fátima Bernardes: “In reality and in fiction, which have marked us, united us, transformed us, and which continue to thrill us and surprise us every day, at every new premiere, at every news conference”.

The need to establish a place in history appears in other moments, such as in Galvão Bueno’s lines: “[...] they made the history of Brazilian sport and now they share it with you. Brazil!”. It even appears in Pedro Bial’s speech regarding Brazilian series: “[...] now it’s time to remember the series that told and retold the history of Brazil for Brazil”. And he continues: “[...] the miniseries demonstrated, with their success, how the Brazilian people like to know the history of Brazil. How the process of building this nation happened. In fact, a process that is still in progress. The political history of Brazil in JK!”.

In his speech, he brings up the terms History and Memory.

Bial says: “so much history, so much memory. I ended up remembering a phrase from one of the pioneers of Globo. The brilliant Otto Lara Resende. Thinking of the time that goes by like this, he said: “Lately many years have passed””. Once again, we see the need to define the broadcaster not only as an agent of memory but also of history.

Finally, according to Barbosa (2006), besides past wishes, the commemorative statements bring promises for the future. “In addition to being privileged builders of the past, the media are places of representation of the future. The future, with its imprecision and uncertainty, becomes the center of daily constructions that make it already emerge in the present, compressing the time of the present” (BARBOSA, 2006, p. 16). The commemorations would be the most emblematic way of representing future expectations because, with the presentification of the past, the media also grant an expectation of the future. In this sense, according to the author, the memorial moment appears as an intensifier of the present torn by utopias, in which the appeals to tradition have only performative value.

In the 50th anniversary issue, the future was addressed in the remembrance act. It is possible to perceive this fact with the use of adverbs of time at the end of the narration of the broadcaster’s young personalities. Bruna Marquezine: “and what comes after 50? After having done so much”. Bruno Gissoni: “after having enchanted so much, moved so much”. Letícia Colin: “after the kiss, after the caresses, after the looks, the touch, the contact. After avenues, jungles, kingdoms, empires, and lives”. Nathália Dill: “from the kick, from the net, from the cut, from the attack and from the defense. After the scream, the silence, the cheering, what comes out of the throat”. Marcello Melo Jr.: “after the duty, the information, the dedication, the collaboration”. Fernanda Gentil: “and after the laughter, the tears, the I love you, the I hate you”. Jayme Matarazzo: “what comes after life, what comes after today?” Marina Ruy Barbosa: “whatever the future may be, we will discover it together”. This can also be seen in the main narrators. Fátima Bernardes: “today, the now, is already tomorrow. And yesterday was already today”. Pedro Bial: “today is long ago”. Fatima Bernardes: “today is the last day of the first.” Pedro Bial: “today is the last day of the first fifty years”. Fatima Bernardes: “today is the first day of the next.” Pedro Bial: “today is the first day of the next pioneers, today is the pioneer day, today is a first day”. Fatima Bernardes: “today is the last day of the first, today is the first day again”. As Barbosa (2006, p. 25) states, “[...] one always turns to the future, necessarily looking to the past”. The time of television broadcasts is open to an infinite future.

Final considerations

The search for memorial preservation by companies, as highlighted in this article, has become a latent concern of several contemporary institutions, especially since the 1990s. Rede Globo, through its project “Memória Globo”, is inserted in this panorama, and frequently uses its memorial collection to produce programs that can narrate its trajectory.

Its fiftieth anniversary can be pointed out as an important example of this use. Just for this occasion, specials were produced and exhibited in the “Jornal Nacional”, in the “Video Show”, or even in the program analyzed by this article. The memorial preservation of the broadcaster maximizes commercial profits, but it unequivocally maximizes symbolic profits with the public that watches it. From the analysis made on the “Especial Globo 50 anos”, it was possible to identify exaltation and sedimentation of the social position that the broadcaster occupies. Exalting, in this case, means emphasizing its performance as an agent of history.

As Thompson (2009) has said, mediated historicity is when the past is portrayed in the media. “Rede Globo” has sought, in synthesis, to establish its memory, to define its position, and safeguard its role as the one that makes history.

Therefore, in the production present, it uses the past as a trajectory to highlight its great legacy for posterity. This is evident in the speeches of the journalists who narrated the program and in the speeches of the young personalities of the station. Thus, the program articulated the three temporal categories (past, present, and future) to broaden the station’s legacy and future as an agent of history.

As limitations of this study and also as a suggestion for other complementary studies, it is proposed that the range of this analysis be expanded to the other actions of the “Rede Globo” organization such as specials inserted in other programs about the 50th anniversary and the backstage of these specials exhibited at “Globo News”. Triangulated analyses may suggest more specific directions of the organization concerning its positioning strategy. It is also suggested that the same methodology be adopted for other television organizations to understand how spaces and the media’s symbolic power are structured across history and institutional memory.

Referências

• BARBOSA, M. Meios de comunicação: lugar de memória ou na história? Contracampo, Niterói, v. 35, n. 1, p. 7-26, abr./jul. 2016. Disponível em: http://www.contracampo.uff.br/index.php/revista/article/view/802 Acesso em: 18 ago. 2017.
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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 Mar 2021
• Date of issue
  Jan-Apr 2021

History

• Received
  06 May 2019
• Accepted
  14 Sept 2020