A TV Industrial de Juiz de Fora: memórias da juizdeforaneidade (1964-1979)

Abstract

In the recent past, TV Industrial figured among the pioneer local broadcasting television stations located outside of a Brazilian state capital. It operated between the years of 1964 and 1979, a period of time in which it came into view as the only TV channel in Juiz de Fora to be rightly called a local broadcasting station. This study is aimed at both reconstructing the history of TV Industrial and investigating the role it played in shaping Juiz de Fora’s cultural identities. Through its competent cultural mediation, TV Industrial has to a large extent helped to construct identities for “juizforanos”. On the whole, such identities gave shape to what is herein called “juizdeforaneidade”. In its programs, TV Industrial staged local setting, issue and even linguistic turns. In this respect, it is acknowledged that one of the self-evident characteristics of television images lies in their verisimilitude to normative consensual notions of ‘real life’. As for the methodological approach, we believe that oral testimonies are to be used as an apt way to make known the memories of former broadcasters responsible for TV Industrial original conception and routine. Beyond its function as the history-documentation medium, TV Industrial has proven that there is no better way to understand society than through the reliable records of the self-society’s actions, symbols, and oral texts. We then point out that all sorts of narratives produced for local audiences are always going to operate in some relation to established discourses of local cultural identities. Finally, the present thesis is committed to highlighting TV Industrial relevance and uniqueness in its representations of “juizdeforaneidade”.