Brazilian Propaganda: Legitimizing an Authoritarian Regime

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Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985) launched seemingly apolitical official campaigns that were aesthetically appealing and ostensibly aimed to
enlighten
and
civilize.
Some were produced as civilian-military collaborations and others were conducted by privately owned media, but undergirding them all was the theme of a country aspiring to become a developed nation.

In Brazilian Propaganda, Nina Schneider examines the various modes of both official and unendorsed propaganda used by an authoritarian regime. Focusing primarily on visual media, she demonstrates how many short films of the period portrayed a society free from class and racial conflicts. These films espoused civic-mindedness while attempting to distract from atrocities perpetuated by the regime.

Mining a rich trove of materials from the National Archives in Rio and conducting interviews with key propagandists, Schneider demonstrates the ambiguities of twentieth-century Brazilian propaganda. She also challenges the notion of a homogeneous military regime in Brazil, highlighting its fractures and competing forces. By analyzing the strategies, production mechanisms, and meanings of these films and reconstructing their effects, she provides an alternative interpretation of the propagandists’ intentions and a new framework for understanding this era in Brazil’s history.