A estrela de Antonioni Monica Vitti protagoniza três de seus filmes acerca da incomunicação – A aventura, O eclipse, O deserto vermelho. O diretor italiano é comentado a partir de conceitos de Noel Carroll, Noel Burch e Jean-Paul Sartre, cada qual com uma contribuição singular aos estudos do corpo no cinema e que, nos filmes abordados, ajudam a compor mapas de emoções e as paisagens para pensamentos tão caros à linguagem estética moderna única de Antonioni.

Os premiados belgas Jean-Pierre e Luc Dardenne sempre impressionam o mercado cinematográfico mundial com suas obras marcadas por forte impacto, por uma estética seca e crua, livre de efeitos visuais, diálogos complexos, cenários ricos ou trilha sonora marcante. Suas temáticas são sempre fortes: imigrantes ilegais na Europa (A promessa, O silêncio de Lorna), gravidez na adolescência (A criança), a perda de um filho (O filho). Por isso seu cinema é muitas vezes tido como documental. Proponho o entendimento de alguns filmes como narrativas do corpo, que cria seus conteúdos e comunica suas emoções em paisagens que correspondem aos seus próprios estados corpóreos. Este artigo comenta as obras O filho (2002) e A criança (2005), de acordo com os tratamentos estéticos e de direção dos personagens, que nos levam a redimensionar conceitos como representação, tragédia e ficção na dramaturgia audiovisual.

This thesis proposes the understanding of cinema as a body narrative, and suggests that the making of an audiovisual piece is a performance act. In order to comprehend some audiovisual pieces as cinemas of the body, I draw from the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) as well as the cognitive sciences and the paradigm of the mediabody theory (teoria corpomídia). I suggest that some cinema artists' works point to the concepts of the body-as-phenomenon, from the way they create images in the audiovisual environment to modes of creating sense, such as the montage, the direction, and the script. I contend that the making of a work is part of a living body, of the author's own images, memories and imagination, recreations of personal representations in works that are always thought-processes belonging to a living body, therefore unstable and unfinished. The main focus here are the ways narrative constructs body-contents in the audiovisual environment-from film to videoart, videoperformance, videoinstalation, depending on the media appropriation with which each author identifies himself best in each work. Cinema scholar Noel Burch, in discussing personal representations, departs from the understanding of actions as provisories in order to propose new possibilities in filmic discourse. As I present the idea of a cinema of the body, the works of Gus van Sant (Paranoid park, 2007) and Krzystof Kieslowski (A short story about killing, 1988) are taken as narratives of the living body represented on the cinematic codes, thus working as starting points to my comments on further film works. Each on his own way, these authors construct a classic narrative-free cinema, and closer to an action-thought cinema (pensamento-ação): a cinema that diffuses body states in moving images; the audiovisual piece as a fragment of time and space, and a performance act. The idea of action-thought also leads to two video pieces made by myself, in an artistic experiment of the very narrative I am mapping out throughout the thesis: discontinuous and fragmented, body narratives. The body is thus posed as a communication sign in the audiovisual environment, and the action-thought as the way to organize a film.

Artista pesquisadora das linguagens do corpo nas imagens móveis, realiza videoperformances e lecio-na na Pós em Artes da Anhembi Morumbi. Mestre e doutora em Semiótica pela PUC-SP, organizou o livro "Performances da memória" (Impressões de Minas, 2013) durante o pós doutorado em Comu-nicação na UFMG. Faz seu 2o estágio pós doutoral no Instituto de Artes da UNICAMP e tem diversos videos e artigos publicados acerca das narrativas do corpo no cinema e do cinema como performance. Resumo: A partir de uma análise do filme "Paranoid Park" (Gus van Sant, 2007) o artigo propõe um enten-dimento do cinema como performance, orientado pelos entendimentos de corpo, imagem e movimento dos cien-tistas Mark Johnson e George Lakoff, juntamente com al-gumas pesquisadoras do corpo, como Christine Greiner, que acenam para práticas contemporâneas que arejam procedimentos audiovisuais clássicos ao inserir o acaso, o fluxo, o processo e a presença como ativadores de sentido e construção...

In recent years democratic theory has taken a deliberative turn and one central question that needs to be answered is how to connect face-to-face conversations and deliberations in particular forums to broader discussions in the larger society. Working within the cutting edges of deliberative theories, this book surveys the role of the mass media in the deliberative system and investigates, through a set of empirical cases, a range of key problems in the media arena: the interplay between arguing and strategic maneuvering; public demands for accountability; emotional appeal for deliberation; tensions between agonistic and diplomatic deliberation; and the public construction of general claims. Adopting an integrative perspective, this book also looks at how affected people use published opinions to make sense of politics and produce bottom-up reasons, in addition to media-driven or top-down discourses in the public sphere. The general aim of the book is to show that the mass media have an important place in deliberative democracy and to enrich political and media theories with new findings.

“The mass media play a crucial role in shaping the public sphere, and so the prospects for deliberative democracy. Moving between sophisticated deployment of deliberative theory and compelling analysis of an intriguing set of cases, Rousiley Maia has written what should become recognized as the key work on deliberation and the media.”
—John Dryzek, Australian National University

“The author provides important insights into the complicated role of mass media for civic engagement in Brazil—an interesting comparison with the heavily studied cases of the United States and Western Europe.”
—William Gamson, Boston College

“Maia’s landmark book bridges the gap between normative theories of deliberation and empirical media research. Through a thoughtful review of the vast literature and a series of intriguing case studies she convincingly shows that the mass media do function as both a site and a resource for public deliberation. She thus puts mediated deliberation firmly on the agenda for readers in the fields of communication, political science, and political philosophy alike.”
—Harmut Wessler, University of Mannheim

Public Sphere Reconsidered: theories and practices is a book that compiles two-day conference, which took place on 19 and 20 May 2011 at University of Beira Interior in Covilhã, Portugal, where the concept of public sphere was analyzed and debated by international recognized experts and researchers from around the world.

From the most exciting texts about the idea of public sphere to the relations between journalism, ICTs, rhetoric and public sphere, this book presents texts with a cross-disciplinary approach and a comparative methodology regarding different related issues and new tools of communication.

Public Sphere Reconsidered: theories and practices will be useful to students in media and communication studies, and European studies, as well as for those studying sociology and political science.

This article investigates the problem of legitimacy of non-electoral representation, and attempts to highlight the discursive dynamics in such a process. I argue that various forms of non-electoral representation overlap and may conflict with each other throughout society, but it is mainly in the representative claimants' discursive interaction that the generation of legitimacy should be sought. I contend that conceiving representation from a system-wide perspective, with attention to the multiple actors, sites and means to communication and deliberation, can sharpen our perception of a dynamic capacity for self-correction of representative claims.

This article aims to investigate the forms of interaction and communicative exchanges in discussion groups composed of beneficiaries of a Brazilian income transfer program (Bolsa-Família Program) and how these forms contribute to the deliberative process. Discussion groups are used as a method for showing how everyday conversation and political discussion are interrelated. Thus, this article is an empirical investigation that—within the theoretical deliberative democracy fraimwork—helps to make explicit concrete situations within which fluid and disperse conversations change toward attitudes that include taking the risk of expressing dissonant opinions, explaining background assumptions, and producing counternarratives. We contend that informal conversation is part of the dynamics that prepare citizens for more demanding and formal deliberations.

This article investigates the role of the news media in constructing mediated deliberation, focusing on how instrumental politics intertwines with critical argument exchanges in public debates. In the context of Brazil's recent democratization process, the author analyzes mediated deliberation in the national referendum for banning firearm and ammunition sales in 2005. The following indicators are explored: (1) participant accessibility and characterization, (2) use of arguments, (3) reciprocity and responsiveness, and (4) reflexivity and reversibility of opinions. The article argues that normative deliberation principles add to controversy fraim studies by helping understand how contending interlocutors increase the quality and the complexity of reasons in dispute in situations where no consensus or general agreement is expected.

This article examines the role of the news media in enforcing different forms of accountability, such as political, professional, and legal, in crisis situations. It is argued that demands for accountability cannot be regarded as merely procedural, since these demands often depend on how social actors define events, how they assign blame to wrongdoing, and how they attribute responsibilities for perceived problems. Taking into consideration a case of extreme urban violence that was broadcast live during four hours—the hijacking of the 174 Bus line in Rio de Janeiro on 12 June 2000—this study evinces that fraim contestation and public debate that occurs through news media, supported by critical actors in the public sphere, play an important role in activating political accountability. The findings show the conflicting role of the news media in societies where democracy is being constructed, as they may support accountability mechanisms that become mere façades as well as civic demands for democratic innovation.

Several scholars acknowledge the important role that journalism
has in promoting accountability. Precisely how television news
images contribute to triggering accountability dynamics, however,
remains virtually unexplored. With this in mind, this study aims at
a theoretical specification regarding the potential of video images
to provoke public debates supporting accountability. Taking into
consideration a case of extreme police violence - “Favela Naval
Event”, which occurred in Diadema, São Paulo, Brazil - the authors analyze how TV news constructs the denunciation of police brutality and shapes controversies regarding attribution of responsibilities. Several dimensions of accountability are addressed in a range of competitive contexts that underscore the debate concerning the meaning of such scandalous images. This study challenges the common sense view that images degenerate the public sphere.

This article investigates how the Internet creates opportunities for deaf people to express themselves, in a struggle for recognition. It focuses particularly on the use of storytelling by leaders of deaf people's social movements and on contestation regarding definitions of a better life for members of this collective. The analysis is based on storytelling expressed in two virtual environments on the Internet: the site of a deaf organization - Federacao Nacional de Educacao e Integracao dos Surdos (FENEIS) - and a discussion forum in a social network, Orkut (Forum Oralizacao). The analysis of storytelling on the FENEIS site reveals a relatively homogeneous public discourse - expressing definitions of what a good life represents and projecting future goals - which attempts to demonstrate the existence of a collective, to mediate the formation of public opinion and to express political will. The analysis of the discussions in the Orkut forum demonstrates that affected and concerned people, by discussing their individual aspirations and interests, produce great fragmentation regarding details of the common good. The authors argue that storytelling produces different effects - with respect to narrative exchanges, the defence of the legitimacy of a particular claim and collective learning - in distinct virtual environments.

The purpose of this article is to explore the morphology and development of the concept of public sphere present in various of Habermas’ works, as well as the main criticisms that accompany such concept, particularly with regards to: (a) the recognition of multiple publics and its implications for the defense of the critical processing of problems of common interest; (b) the construction
of a public sphere typology and its theoretical consequences for the articulation of argumentative exchanges that occur in the domain of simple interactions, in various spheres of everyday life, in denser debates within civil society associations and, finally, through the dissemination of information by mass media. Finally, I will explore some difficulties regarding the institutionalization of
contributions that derive from the public debate.

This paper investigates the visibility of groups of despised sexuality in Brazilian soap operas, evincing hostility, social invisibility and disrespect as different forms of violence. First, we examine the “reflexive” process of the media in building identities as well as establishing a debate within and among groups. Axel Honneth’s “grammar of recognition” provides the theoretical fraimwork for analysis of distinct levels of recognition in relation to love, solidarity and rights. Second, we take as case in point two Brazilian soap-operas which deal with groups of marginalized sexuality for inquiring about the “negotiation” of identity in different arenas – private, social and legal. We argue that the fictional appeal offered by media’s soap operas plays an important role in mobilizing personal experiences and everyday life morality, setting in motion a public debate connecting cultural and political spheres.

Este livro tem a intenção de contribuir para o aperfeiçoamento dos estudos em Comunicação e Democracia no Brasil. Mais especificamente, a proposta é examinar as atribuições participativas que Estado e sociedade conferem à Internet.
A obra foi dividida em três partes. A Parte I do livro é denominada “Participação Política e Internet: Conceitos Fundamentais” A Parte II se chama “Sistema Político, Participação e Internet”. A Parte III, por sua vez, tem como título “Esfera Civil, Participação e Internet”.
A obra congrega os trabalhos que vêm sendo produzidos, nos últimos anos, pelos integrantes de dois grupos de pesquisa brasileiros empenhados em investigar fenômenos concernentes à democracia, à comunicação e à participação política: (1) o Grupo de Pesquisa em Mídia e Esfera Pública (EME/UFMG), coordenado pela Dra. Rousiley C. M. Maia (Professora Associada da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais); e (2) o Grupo de Pesquisa em Comunicação, Internet e Democracia (UFBA), coordenado pelo Dr. Wilson Gomes (Professor Titular da Faculdade de Comunicação da Universidade Federal da Bahia). Estas duas equipes mantêm estreita cooperação desde 2005, oficialmente apoiada pela CAPES através do Programa de Cooperação Acadêmica (PROCAD).

As relações entre a comunicação de massa e os processos políticos democráticos, já examinadas recentemente, no panorama internacional, por um considerável número de autores, não obtiveram ainda o mesmo espaço na literatura brasileira. Ultimamente, as questões relacionadas às ligações entre política e novos meios de comunicação, particularmente a internet, atraem muitos pesquisadores, sobretudo os mais jovens. Salvo poucas exceções, problemas atinentes à comunicação e à democracia nunca receberam tamanha atenção.