Communicative practices, media and technologies: crossstudies among Brazil and Angola

Abstract

We present in this article comparison points among situations studied in the state of Maranhão, Brazil, and in three provinces of Southern Angola: Huambo, Huíla and Benguela. In both cases, we have identified the coexistence of archaic and traditional communicative practices as well as the use of new technologies, such as the use of the Internet and digital social media. For the analysis and interpretation of the cases, we used the theoretical and methodological framework proposed by authors of cultural studies, such as Williams (2016) and Hall (2013), in addition to Thompson (2013) and García Canclini (2008). We can see, from the cases presented here, that the relations between tradition and modernity and of time and space, for example, are appropriated by the subjects in order to account for their daily practices. may or may not be guided by the logic of the media.

Keywords
Communicative Practices; Cultural Studies; Technology; Brazil; Angola

Resumo

Apresentamos, neste artigo, pontos de comparação entre situações estudadas no estado do Maranhão, Brasil, e em três províncias do Sul de Angola: Huambo, Huíla e Benguela. Em ambos os casos, identificamos a coexistência de práticas comunicativas arcaicas, tradicionais e também a utilização de novas tecnologias, como o caso do uso da internet e das redes sociais digitais. Para a análise e interpretação dos casos, utilizamos o arcabouço teórico e metodológico proposto por autores dos estudos culturais, como Williams (2016) e Hall (2013), além de Thompson (2013) e García Canclini (2008). Percebemos, a partir dos casos analisados, que as relações entre tradição e modernidade e de tempo e espaço, por exemplo, são apropriadas pelos sujeitos visando dar conta de suas práticas cotidianas, que podem ou não ser pautadas pela lógica das mídias.

Palavras-chave
Práticas Comunicativas; Estudos Culturais; Tecnologia; Brasil; Angola

Resumen

Presentamos en este artículo puntos de comparación entre situaciones estudiadas en el estado de Maranhão, Brasil, y en tres provincias del sur de Angola: Huambo, Huíla y Benguela. En ambos casos, identificamos la coexistencia de prácticas comunicativas arcaicas, tradicionales y también la utilización de nuevas tecnologías, como el caso del uso de Internet y de las redes sociales digitales. Para el análisis e interpretación de los casos, utilizamos el marco teórico y metodológico propuesto por autores de los estudios culturales, como Williams (2016) y Hall (2013), además de Thompson (2013) y de García Canclini (2008). Se percibe, a partir de los casos analizados, que las relaciones entre tradición y modernidad y de tiempo y espacio, por ejemplo, son apropiadas por los sujetos para dar cuenta de sus prácticas cotidianas, que pueden o no ser pautadas por la lógica de los medios.

Palabras clave
Communicative Practices; Cultural Studies; Technology; Brazil; Angola

Introduction

We present comparison points between situations studied in the state of Maranhão, Brazil and three provinces in Southern Angola: Huambo, Huíla and Benguela. The objective is to identify and try to understand usage and appropriation by subjects in interpersonal communication as well as using mediatic devices available in spaces with little access to new Technologies in which rural economy (and in the case of Maranhão, fishing and extractivist, too) is still the main way to survive in communities comparatively studied in both countries.

For case analysis and interpretation, we used the theoretical and methodological framework proposed by authors of cultural studies such as Williams (2016), Hall (2013) and Escosteguy (2019), and by media studies such as those of Thompson (2013) to understand the place of subjects in communicative practices. We also have García Canclini’s (2008) discussion on cultural hybridity to analyze cases observed during fieldwork in the two compared locations. In this approach, we use a cultural and historicized reading of technology; therefore, not conceiving it unilaterally and, in itself, responsible for social and cultural changes. Our interest in the analysis is based on the sociability that the subjects make with the communication practices and available media, allowing, in the investigated cases, to identify the coexistence of such different forms of communication in the same space and time.

In Maranhão, the studied area - Guajerutíua - is part of the Cururupu Extractive Reserve (Resex), Federal Conservation Unit (UC) for Sustainable Use, created in 2004¹, formed by archipelagos of Cururupu coastal islands bordering mangroves from border municipalities of Serrano, Apicum-Açu, Bacuri and Puerto Rico. Observations brought about Angola were made during fieldwork, carried out in August 2018, in Huambo, Huíla and Benguela provinces located in the southern municipalities of Caála, Cacula and Ganda, specifically in the Sakaliñga, Cavissi villages II and Ndende headquarters, respectively.

The methodology used to compare the two cases is qualitative and was based on semi-structured interviews and participant observation of the researchers in the investigated places, mainly focusing on forms of media sociability based on reports, as well as the observation of the main communicational between groups. Conversation scripts dealt with the uses and appropriations of the media, in addition to forms of interpersonal communication among interviewees in the localities.

Co-existence of communicative practices

We analyzed cases presented in this article based on practices in cultural studies focused on tension between a subject’s creative and productive abilities, and pressure from structural determinations such as substantive dimension within the limitation of such an ability (REQUILLO, 2004). Similar to Escosteguy (2019), we start from a cultural and historicized view of technology, far from that which is understood as a cause in itself, of cultural or social change.

(...) the challenge is how to deal with structures constituting the subjects, without losing sight of the experience of those same subjects; in the analysis maintaining both the objective strength of institutions, revealed in their products/artifacts and the subjective ability of social actors. It is from these premises that the specificity of the social and political scope in cultural analysis stands out

(ESCOSTEGUY, 2019, p. 13).

That is how we understand media as technology which enables communication, with identification of the set of social and cultural practices that occur in the surroundings (VARELA, 2010). In this context, Williams (2016, p. 139) states:

Technological determinism is an unsustainable notion because it replaces economic, social and political intentions with random autonomy of the invention or with abstract human essence. (...) Determination is a real social process, but never [...] a set of completely controlling and defining causes. On the contrary, the reality of determination is to set limits and exert pressure, within which changing social practices are profoundly affected, but not necessarily controlled.

We also used the concept of cultural hybridity, by García Canclini (2008), stemming back to the first exchanges between societies, offering an analysis parameter for interactions between cultures and “structures, objects and practices” originating from this contact. Even today, we see many artifacts and hybrid practices that permeate society and, in this author’s view, the concept gains strength and relevance, as it is increasingly intensified by globalizing processes.

García Canclini (2008) seeks to analyze, within the context of Latin America, the known counterpoints of society such as tradition-modernity, popular-cult, hegemonic-subordinate, urban-rural antitheses. Although the author starts from the Latin American context, we think the concept is also pertinent to analyze cases found in Angola, in Africa, in the comparative perspective with Brazil, and especially Maranhão since we perceive similarities in subjects’ appropriation of both archaic communication and that’s related to new technologies.

Cururupu Extractivst Reserve (MA) and technological communication layers

The Cururupu Extractivist Reserve (Resex) is located on the western coastal strip known as Reentrâncias Maranhenses, with approximately 186 thousand hectares of mangroves, restingas, sandy beaches, lagoons, vegetation, and solid Earth. It’s the largest marine reserve in Brazil and was created to protect traditional populations’ cultural practices and means of livelihood, ensuring sustainable natural resource use. There are 12 traditional fishing communities, containing 1229 families, 4 seasonally occupied locations depending on the small-scale fishing activities.² Per the Cururupu Resex Management Plan³, the importance of the Federal Conservation Unit (UC) for sustainable use exists for several reasons: source of economic activity based mainly on artisanal fishing; nursery for fish species and aquatic invertebrates; fundamental area for the ecological balance of diverse flora (more than 33 families) and wild fauna (more than 110 families); the area is located in the largest mangrove forest in the world; it consists of restinga phytophysiognomies, ombrophilous forests; it shelters thousands of sea and coastal birds, as well as several species of wild animals, such as anteaters, raccoons, alligators and swears; it is the living area of the mere fish, gray boto, sea turtle and manatee fish.

The islands are identified as “praias” or “beaches”, a term adopted by residents (called “praianos”) to characterize the locality as a whole and not strictly the strip of sand demarcated at the limit with the sea. Our observation universe for this article is the Guajerutíua community, one of the most structured of Cururupu Resex, marked by the expressive presence of masonry houses and public facilities such as an elementary school with access to the internet, a health post, generator, bakery, small commercial establishments called “greengrocers”, churches (Catholic and Evangelical), as well as a wide coast with a beach, also used for fishing and catching seafood.

On an evolutionary scale of technological communication practiced at this location. First, we have word of mouth communication, that is, the interpersonal relationships materialized in the exchange of information through dialogue between residents. The island’s geographic configuration allows for an informal surveillance system between movement from the port, a mandatory place for residents and visitors to travel to work in fishing or on trips to other locations. Being seen on arrival and departure is something that disciplines the look among islanders. The look is also a matter of security because the island is located in an extractive reserve with all the implications and peculiar care of a Conservation Unit (UC). The act of combing and scanning people’s movements, capturing the daily chores of the residents, also motivates general conversation on the beach, day and night, depending on tide oscillation.

One of the special places of conversation is right on the edge of the port, in what is conventionally called “radio”. It is a shelter made of wood and covered with masonry tiles, where men gather to talk every day about what happened on the beach. It is a predominantly male space, positioned right at the main access to the interior of the town. In the morning and the evening, the men gather under the roof, standing or sitting on improvised wooden logs as benches, to comment on the facts of the beach.

The “radio” also receives a special name related to men’s sexuality, a derogatory characterization of the self-designated heterosexual male without the vitality and sexual prowess of old. To designate this place where only men speak, where the phallus is the hard and ferocious language, they named the place “wet coal”, a reference to the (lack of) erection related to humor of something that no longer lights or only lights up with great difficulty. Through the “radio” or “wet coal” they review the public and private life of the residents, in shades of information, comments, gossip and various adjectives.

Men have the habit of going to the “radio” to find out about current events or events on the beach the day before, as well as the expectation in the face of scheduled events, such as planned parties, visits by the priest to baptize children or celebrate mass, evangelical services, vessel arrival and departure, deliveries, price of fish and seafood in general, review of fisheries, stories and the most varied stories. The “radio” or “wet coal” is a small “square” on the beach, restricted to straight, adult men, over 60 years of age. It is also a kind of tribune, where several speakers alternate about daily community life. The disposition of the speakers in this special place incorporates some current characteristic elements. According to Sennett (2003, p. 48), the Greek city disciplined the flow of bodies and spaces for conversation:

The evolution of Athenian democracy shaped current surfaces and proportions since the possible movement in simultaneous spaces favored more intense participation. Moving between different groups, one could learn about what was happening in the city and exchange ideas on the most varied subjects. Open space was even an invitation to eventually take part in legal matters

(SENNETT, 2003, p. 48).

In addition to the “radio”, a meeting place for speaking in a collective environment, information flow and communication on matters of public and private interest also permeates life in Guajerutíua. Going from house to house is another exercise in effective interpersonal communication on the beach. This task is usually done by the person with the community leadership role, responsible for informing residents about any meeting or event of collective interest; update families with information on registration or re-registration of public services from the City Hall, Social Security or any federal government agency; announce about travel to Cururupu headquarters for meetings with municipal or state managers; summon residents to receive government emissaries present on the island to carry out some bureaucratic procedure with the population, such as updating registration, filling in documents to obtain benefits, registering for public health campaigns or training events; and finally, circulating information of broad interest.

Whether on the “radio” or from house to house, interpersonal conversation characterizes the predominance of the voice, mediating a language to be spoken and heard, called by Ong (1998) of primary orality, characterized by the strength of the spoken word as action and power in dynamics of oral cultures, referred to a stage in human skill development not yet touched by writing.

Without writing, Words themselves do not have a visual presence without writing even though the objects they represent are visual. They are sounds. One could “evoke them” - “revoke them”. However, they are nowhere to be “looked for”. They have no thirst, no trace (a visual metaphor that shows subordination to writing), not even a trajectory. They are occurrences, events (ONG, 1998, p. 42).

Although a part of the beach population knows how to read and write, the spoken word is a tonic in Guajerutíua’s communicational culture considering the primary orality related to sound. In “radio”, orality gives cohesion to collective life, restoring in a way the tribal meaning of conversation campfire conversations, where there is a plurality of narratives about residents’ private and public dynamics, as pointed out by Nunes (1993).

[...] the magical value given to the word by the primary oral cultures, those that do not know the writing, because the spoken word is animated by power and confers power over things. The word is the manifestation and apprehension of reality

(ONG, 1998 apud NUNES, 1993, p. 101).

The institution of Cururupu Resex made it possible to include some social programs on the islands. One of these benefits was the welfare program Bolsa Verde (extinguished in 2018), a cash transfer program for families in extreme poverty who live in areas important to environmental conservation. Every three months, registered families received R$300 reais as an incentive for communities to use the territory sustainably, aiming at environmental conservation and respect for rules regarding natural resource use. In Guajerutíua, families benefitting from Bolsa Verde organized joint efforts to clean up the beach, to ensure a clean and healthy environment. Unlike the “radio” or “wet coal”, a space for men, the cleaning efforts (still present in the community even after the extinction of the Bolsa Verde program) bring together men and women while street sweeping, collecting and incinerating garbage when necessary. Collective cleaning is also a moment for the islanders to share each other’s daily lives and, in a way, moments of relaxation with work divided into specific tasks for women (sweeping) and men (collecting the heaviest waste).

The feeling of collectivity for specific group activities, such as cleaning can also be observed during preparations for religious celebrations and in major events such as Carnival and celebrations in honor of Saint John in particular. They are packed with relatives of residents who have already resided outside the island, but who always return to Guajerutíua during the carnival period. The mobilization for celebrations, a common expression on the beaches to designate celebrations of a religious and profane nature, is always shared in the dimension of cultural and identity practices that articulate community feeling (HALL, 2013).

The second technological layer on the island is the loudspeaker system, popularly known as “voice” and used for announcements of greater interest to the entire community. In this case, the person who performs the role of leader writes a statement and takes it to the “voice” headquarters for the ad to be read. The use of this system reaches the entire island and reduces walking from house to house to make announcements. Thus, individuals turn to the speaker when they need to communicate something immediate and relevant.

The “voice” has no daily programming, that is, it does not work with the characteristics of a radio station and has no ties to any organization on the island. It is a particular piece of equipment that can be activated occasionally. It stands out, therefore, from the loudspeaker radios linked to the Ecclesial Base Communities (CEBs) of the Catholic Church in the 1970s to the 1980s. The loudspeakers, technology adopted to designate popular radios, operated at fixed times and set programming: music, news, interviews, parish notices, prayers and presentation by community artists (PERUZZO, 1998). Upon publication of Law 9612/98, which instituted the Community Broadcasting Service, low-power FM broadcasters emerged, many of them originating from speaker systems.

Regarding mass media, it is worth mentioning the relationship between the beach and the radio. Guajerutíua is a remnant of remote places that for decades were connected by AM radio as a means of integrating Maranhão. The radio played a key role in linking people who migrated from mainland cities to São Luís when parents usually sent their children from the countryside or distant coasts to seek better technical professional training in the capital, where the opportunities for qualification and the market were more promising. In the 1960s and 1970s, Maranhão still lived a certain geographical isolation, with precarious roads and a lack of transport capable of providing stable flows of visits and contacts between family members. Thus, the connection between the island and the continent depended on the AM radio to send messages to relatives, playing a relevant role in the process of integration and sociability (ARAÚJO, 2016) as a means of breaking the isolation of the remote regions of Maranhão.

In remote places, such as the Cururupu Resex islands, radio is still an important means of informing, providing service and connecting families today. In Guajerutíua, battery-operated receivers, widely used by fishermen, only capture AM broadcasters based in São Luís, Maranhão, and Belém, Pará. Although the headquarters of the municipalities of Cururupu and Serrano do Maranhão have community FM broadcasters, the reach of this type of radio, low power (25 Watts), is limited. No FM in the two mentioned cities has enough power to reach Guajerutíua, with AM radio reception predominating.

Electricity in Guajerutíua is only possible from 6 pm to midnight, provided by a mechanical generator powered by fuel - diesel oil. Public lighting is very restricted, in such a way that the use of television inside the houses causes an unusual scene - walking through the streets of soft sand, at night, it is possible to perceive beams of light projecting from inside the masonry houses or in simple houses made of wood, mud or straw. The luminosity is due to large state-of-the-art TV sets, usually tuned in to Jornal Nacional news and Rede Globo soap operas, during prime time, when there is a large concentration of residents at home, demonstrating a strong influence of open television.

There are two types of telephone service: fixed (rural telephone) and mobile (cellular). Mobile telephony involves other essential equipment for connecting the island to the world. Guajerutíua already has internet access through a project implemented by the federal government in partnership with the Municipality of Cururupu. This internet access point is very popular, especially in the late afternoon, when dozens of young people and adults are seen close to the school connecting their cell phones to send and receive text, audio and video messages, using applications. However, the restricted data package does not allow web browsing. Thus, data package improvement for navigation can also facilitate the radio audience using applications downloaded from smartphones that allow tuning via cell phone to any radio on the planet.

The forms of communication on the island, which happen through interpersonal dialogues, traditional media (radio and television) up to the world wide web maps the connection between people using multiple platforms. The predominant orality in “radio” or “wet coal” is also present in voice messages sent and received through social networking apps on smartphones. Thus, despite geographical isolation, the beach is connected via the internet. The local scenario also shows different generational affections for technological devices. Older age groups and the elderly are still attached to the AM radio, the result of an ever-present tradition instilled in this group. Knowledge about the world, through news, has a strong reference on the radio. Adolescents and youth are connected in other ways, on the web, but it is essential to reiterate that the two technological layers considered archaic - writing and the spoken word - are re-signified in the new technological devices that allow the flow of text and voice messages. Another relevant observation is the reduced data capacity of the internet access point, which is still restricted to the school building and in limited quality for full navigation. This restriction still does not allow Internet users to view long videos and access films or digital platforms that require a more consistent data package, leaving almost all users still hostage to open television or the channels made available by satellite dishes in the region.

The Angolan provinces Huambo, Benguela and Huíla: from archaic communication practices to Facebook Zero

The provinces investigated in southern Angola were greatly affected in the civil war period which lingered on from its independence in 1975 until the peace treaty⁴ in 2002. Villages suffered significant economic and social impacts from forced displacement and the consequent evacuation of some locations due to the fighting during the war. This situation intensified the difficulties of access even to mass traction media, such as television.

In August 2018, few television sets were found in the three villages visited during fieldwork, and, most of the time, they did not have access to the main television network in the country, TPA (Public Television of Angola) due to the absence of satellite dishes, serving only to playa documentaries or musical videos on DVD players. In the village Cavissi II, located in the municipality of Cacula, in the province of Huíla, we found three television sets, two in family homes and one in local shops. In the other two villages visited, the proportion of television sets per household was on average one for every 80 households. The villages had, on average, 300 resident families and had 3 to 4 television sets each village.

According to Angolan sociologist Katiavala (2016), cantinas⁵ in addition to selling products, serve as general communal areas exhibition of videos and TV programs, for example, the widely watched Brazilian soap operas in Angola, especially in the metropolitan region of the capital, Luanda.

The most common form of media found on reservations is the radio because of easy access to battery-operated devices, which don’t depend on electric energy and are sold at more affordable prices in local markets in addition to the ease of tuning in to the main existing networks in Angola., Regarding battery-operated radios, in the reservation visited, we found an average one device for every two people⁶, with some instances where a person has more than one device, one that stays home and one that goes with the workers to the fields since the country’s main radio station, Rádio Nacional de Angola which according to interview participants, has an easy signal.

Easy access to radios is related both to the price of the device and to the possibility of using it without electricity since the three villages visited do not have it; only small generators to supply the basic needs of some refrigerators, coolers and television sets until 10 pm, the time when most of the lights are turned off completely.

Although we found little access from the residents of the Angolan villages visited during the study, we can say that television is a consolidated mass vehicle in the country, at least when it comes to the Luanda metropolitan region. According to a study by the company Marktest (2015) in Greater Luanda (metropolitan region), 98% of people have access to television and 76% read newspapers and magazines. TPA is the most viewed channel, with 88% of the audience; and TV Zimbo presented 69% of the audience of viewers in this survey. 5,000 people were interviewed in Greater Luanda and 50% of the sample reported that they also have access to the internet, with Facebook being the most visited site.

During fieldwork, we collected some information about the preferred radio and television content in villages in the south of the country. Mostly, the preference is soap operas, both Brazilian, Mexican, and Angolan, which are aired both on TPA (Public Television of Angola) and TV Zimbo, the main commercial TV; followed by sports programs, mainly soccer; and third, both television and radio news. We heard an account of a radio soap opera, shown by Rádio Nacional de Angola, but we were unable to confirm its existence on the website which is why we can think that it was some experiment lived in the past by the people who made such a comment. Although farmers have informed that they are interested in journalistic content that deals with rural issues, such as crops, crops, among others, they affirmed that in terms of the main content consumed by both radio and television, these matters appear little.

But what caught our attention the most in these villages was the coexistence of archaic forms of communication, such as the presence of the herald, which is a person chosen by the community to spread news by going from house to house, on any matter of collective interest; and the soba, traditional village authority responsible for the main collective decisions and a kind of ‘traditional court’, together with the presence of digital social media, such as the case of Facebook Zero⁷, a kind of Facebook that doesn’t require paying internet networks.

In Sakaliñga village, in the municipality of Caála, Huambo province, we had contact with soba Luciano Kossengue, 52, who has held the position of traditional authority since 1998. “In the community, Django is where we resolve conflicts; where we do the necessary repairs”. Django is a space for decision making in the community. It usually works in a physical space with a circular structure, clay walls and covered with straw or tile. It is a collective space in the village, built in collective effort, occupied for meetings and dedicated to making important collective decisions. In Django, there are also so-called “traditional courts”; meetings that gather Sobas, the sekulos, who are the soba helpers, with villagers to resolve internal conflicts such as thefts and robberies or even marital and family problems. The soba is also a kind of community advisor and representative; the main communicator authorized to speak for the village. According to tradition, the position is passed on from parents to children and there are more recent cases, since the 1990s, of Sobas being elected by vote or by consensus by the villagers⁸.

In the three villages visited, we also became aware of the herald, a person generally chosen by the village chief to carry out the service of notifying, communicating to all households about important events involving the sociability of the communities, such as the case of a visit or participation in any event inside or outside the village, in addition to important reports on crops, economy, transport and other matters of collective interest. The herald informed, for example, of our arrival in the villages to carry out interviews and fieldwork.

In two of the three villages visited, we found coexisting with these archaic forms of communication and also with traditional media, such as radio and television, communicative practices related to new technologies, such as the use of the internet and digital social media.

In the Sakaliñga village, located in the province of Huambo, we only find a few mobile phones. They don’t have internet access, just used for calls from operators. But in the villages Cavissi II, Huíla, and Ndende Sede, in Benguela, we find the youngest using smartphones, with access to the internet and digital social media from so-called Facebook Zero. Although still in small quantities, we account for an average of 20 devices in each village, which are shared by brothers, family and friends to communicate with people who generally reside in provincial capitals or nearby villages, but also with family and friends residing in the capital Luanda. Remember that each village had, on average, 300 households.

Soba, Augusto Kamela, 52, from the village Ndende Sede, located in the municipality of Ganda, Benguela province, when asked what he thought of the arrival of new technologies and village internet, replied that it was a gateway to things from outside the village mainly for youth and that this implied “good and bad things”. The traditional authority referred to the ways of life and mainly to the consumption models that the younger ones had been accessing, less than a year ago, to digital social media; generally interested in leaving more of the village and getting to know new things and, at the same time, showing a certain lack of interest in helping their parents in the fields or “living a rural life, according to their elders”.

Since 2012, Unitel, the main mobile phone operator in Angola, has joined the so-called Facebook Zero, a tool that the team of one of the largest social media in the world makes available to “less wealthy” countries so that users can access Facebook even without credits (balance, data etc.). This tool has limitations and the main one is the fact that it does not allow the reproduction of multimedia elements, such as images, videos and audios. In this sense, Facebook Zero allows users to use chat and make text posts on the social media. Since 2016, Movicel, the second largest Angolan mobile phone operator, has also joined the agreement with the company Facebook, allowing its users to access the social media in the same way as Unitel.

We also heard reports from young people who have smartphones with access to Facebook Zero. They reported that they use the tool mainly to communicate, through chat, with friends and family members residing in other locations close to the provinces where they live or even in the capital Luanda. They claim that this tool facilitated communication since they don’t have balance, as in the case of conventional calls from operators.

Crossed studies: tradition, modernity and cultural hybridism

The compared cases demonstrate coexistence of archaic forms and new communication technologies, although well-known mass media, such as radio and television, are still the most common channels in both contexts, with certain specificities regarding access: radio in Angolan villages, and radio and television in communities in Maranhão. Orality, as previously indicated, is the cultural form (WILLIAMS, 2016) most present, not least because both in Angolan villages and the communities observed in Maranhão, the informants have, on average, low schooling; in general, the oldest are illiterate (or functionally illiterate) and the youngest have incomplete elementary or high school education. Therefore, the main communicative practice among them is orality with text messages written by the youngest who use chat applications on the internet.

The attempt to insert homogeneous modernity in the world has its effects both in globality, which coexists with localities, as well as in the traditions of certain regions living with new work techniques and even with advanced media devices, etc. In this sense, the concept of cultural hybridism (GARCÍA CANCLINI, 2008) helps us to think about the ‘consequences’ of these interactions and what cannot be classified either as global or local, or archaic or modern, but what is related to its coexistence. According to the author, in all places where modernity arrives, there is hybridization, as it does not break what was traditional, but inserts itself by mixing characteristics and juxtaposing different temporalities, artifacts and places.

The hybridization process brings in its reflection the (re) configuration of places and identities. In this paradigm, localities emerge as identities with many hybrid factors to be verified. The emphasis on hybridization does not just cover the claim to establish “pure” or “authentic” identities. Also, it highlights the risk of delimiting local identities that are self-contained or that try to assert themselves as radically opposed to national society or globalization

(GARCÍA CANCLINI, 2008, p. 23).

In this way, cultural hybridity is conceptualized as “socio-cultural processes in which discrete structures or practices, which existed separately, combine to generate new structures, objects and practices” (GARCÍA CANCLINI, 2008, p. 19).

In this context, globalization can be understood by the economic, financial, communicational and migratory processes that declare the interdependence between societies, in their multiple sectors, generating flows of “supranational interconnection” (GARCÍA CANCLINI, 2008, p. 58). With the globalizing proposals of free media access, these technologies are inserted in different locations. There is an example of cultural hybridization within the global-local segment, which can be understood as glocalism.

According to Thompson (2013), globalization arises only when activities take place in a global arena, its organization and planning are also global, and when all this involves some degree of reciprocity and interdependence, allowing activity in one part of the world to be modeled by other activities in other locations.

The author avoids certain mistakes, which think of tradition as a “thing of the past”, and shows that there is not necessarily a decline - which was formerly thought to be the enemy of Enlightenment thinking and the dynamics of modern societies. The explanation then arises that tradition needs to be understood, first of all, in its hermeneutic aspect (as a mental structure or interpretive scheme), normative aspect (with its guiding moral principles), legitimizing aspect (for the exercise of types of power as the legal, charismatic and traditional authority) and identifier aspect (bringing a self-identity or a collective identity).

Final considerations

We perceive, from the cases brought here, that the relations between tradition and modernity and time and space, for example, are appropriated by the subjects aiming to account for their daily practices, which may or may not be guided by media logic in the contemporary world.

In the two cases analyzed, the experience of archaic communicative practices, such as those of the herald or soba figures, identified in Angolan provinces, or of radio or wet coal, in the Maranhão community, coexist as modes of appropriation (THOMPSON, 2013) of new technologies, with access - even if restricted - to digital social media applications. Although there is a certain differentiation of groups within the localities that use the various tools, in general the older people responsible for interpersonal and ‘internal’ communication and the younger ones authorized to carry out communication from the inside out of villages and communities, the sociability between the subjects go through these daily experiences that go from one extreme to the other, but which can be seen as part of contemporary communicative practices. That is, the purpose of this analysis is to deconstruct a timeline and evolution that goes from the traditional, with a view of the ‘old’ to the modern, with the idea of ‘new’.

The observation experience of the two cases shows us that this dichotomous view impoverishes the analysis and does not allow us to absorb the subjects’ abilities and subjectivities to appropriate and build their forms of sociability with the means of communication available for this.

In this sense, discussions proposed by both García Canclini (2008) and Thompson (2013) about globalization processes help us understand the coexistence of these practices and even of the observed ways of life that manage to congregate so many different forms of communicability between the subjects from the same locality and those groups with distant others. Likewise, Hall’s (2013) discussions on identity and identification also help us think of these groups not as something static and homogeneous, but dynamic and diverse, capable of constructing identification processes with media apparatus that seem not to be foreseen for people willing physical conditions (such as the difficulty of internet access) and which are reframed based on the subjects’ ability to (re) invent access strategies, such as going to the public school door in the Maranhão community to be able to use the Wi-Fi signal through smartphones or even use Facebook Zero to exchange text and audio messages with people who are outside and far from Angolan villages.

• 1
  Cururupu Resex was created on June 2, 2004 by Presidential Decree. Available at: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2004-2006/2004/dnn/dnn10194.htm. Accessed on: Aug. 21, 2020.
• 2
  The communities are Guajerutíua, São Lucas, Peru, Caçacueira, Valda-me Deus, Porto Alegre, Lençóis, Bate-Vento, Mirinzal, Porto do Meio, Retiro and Iguará. The locations are Mangunça, Taboa, Beiradão and Urumaru.
• 3
  Available at https://www.icmbio.gov.br/portal/images/stories/plano-de-manejo/plano_de_manejo_resex_marinha_de_cururupu.pdf. Accessed on: Aug. 21, 2020.
• 4
  The Angolan Civil War was an armed conflict in Angola, which started in 1975 and continued off and on until 2002. The war started immediately after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. Before that, a decolonization conflict (1974/75) and the Angolan War of Independence (1961-1974) had taken place. The Angolan civil war was essentially a power struggle between two old liberation movements, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
• 5
  The same term is used in the Brazilian and Angolan context. Cantinas are small community businesses where goods are traded for or sold on a “pay later” system.
• 6
  This information was collected during fieldwork in Angolan villages in August 2018. It is not statistical data, but it is based on reports from informants.
• 7
  It is a partnership between Unitel, the telecommunications company, in Angola, with Facebook. Signed in 2012, the partnership between these two companies allows access to the digital social media at no cost to Unitel customers. When accessing the site, the Unitel Client can read news and comment on posts, and other information of interest without being charged. Unitel customers do not have access to multimedia elements (images, videos and audios), and a link is always available for viewing. Whenever Facebook Zero users want to view or download a multimedia element, they are informed that it is a paid feature (Available at: Facebook. Accessed on: Apr. 18, 2012).
• 8
  To find out more about Sobas, see the thesis dealing with the subject, entitled “Local Public Power and the traditional authorities in Angola, the special case of Cunene”, defended in 2014 by ISEC (Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciências) in Luanda, by Justina Carlos Miguel. Available at: https://comum.rcaap.pt/bitstream/10400.26/8596/1/disserta%C3%A7%C3%A3o.pdf. Accessed on: Jan. 31, 2019.

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Publication Dates

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

History

• Received
  07 May 2019
• Accepted
  19 Sept 2020