The production of knowledge in Brazilian social movement families

Abstract

Analyses of the interplay between media technologies and social movements have been predominantly media-centric, focusing on practices and orientations towards media. Studies looking into communication and media practices within social movements usually have the single social movement as a unit of analysis, overlooking relations and interactions among social movements. We shift the focus to practices and orientations towards media, and to communicative processes among social movement families. The study pays particular attention to communication related to the production and circulation of knowledge. Through the study of the interrelations among three social movements in Brazil, we propose a typology of knowledge constructed and circulated within and among social movements as related to 1) militancy and insurgency, 2) mobilisation dynamics, and 3) framing awareness.