"O que é ser mulher negra no Brasil?": o Youtube a serviço de uma nova representação

Abstract

This paper aims to understand how black women have talked about themselves and, thus, constructed narratives in media representation of what it is to be a black woman in Brazil. This dissertation has as its object of analysis four YouTube channels, which are named as: Camilla de Lucas, Gabi Oliveira, Nátaly Nery and Rayza Nicácio. Channels led by black women were chosen since the main objective was to identify how black female identity construction is done by those who are part of this social group and if, by having the opportunity to talk about themselves, these women and content creators create a “counternarrative” that it is the one that breaks with the traditional representation of the Brazilian media regarding black women. It is assumed that there is a rupture, bearing in mind what we have in the traditional national media is in general the male and white gaze that constructs the narratives of representation of different groups, including the black female. For this reason we brought up the concept of mediatization, which deals precisely with the social transformations caused by the emergence of new media. This concept helps us, especially nowadays, to understand how different instances of contemporary social life directly or indirectly intersects with digital and on-line media. Second, this work is dedicated to investigating and understanding how different sectors of traditional media in Brazil, such as television, advertising, print newspaper, cinema, among others; represent the black woman. Before this, however, there is a discussin of how the construction of identification of a group occurs and what is the role of the media representation in this construction. In the third part of this work, we start by analyzing the channels chosen for the analysis, which shows that with 16 videos that correspond to 4 videos of each channel and a total of 4 hours 14 minutes and 04 seconds of analyzed material, five narrative approaches are identified, such as: 1) self-protagonism; 2) beauty/aesthetics; 3) educational/informative; 4) activist/militant and 5) personal achievements. Analyzing these channels, therefore, it is clear that there is a construction of a media representation that acts as a "counter-narrative" to the traditional media of the country, since this displays the black woman as a servant, a subservient, a coadjuvant and a victim in society, having her traits treated as a problem to be fixed. However, it is observed, in these YouTube channels, narratives putting these black women as protagonists, using their own traits as a source of inspiration and beauty, presenting themselves as "successful" and questioning the society around them.