Communication Studies Graduate Students
Samantha Nogueira Joyce
Program: Media and Society
Began program in 2006
Area of Study:Television Studies, Media and Social Change
Office: 112 BCSB
E-Mail: samantha-joyce@uiowa.edu
Media, especially television shaped every aspect of who I am as a person, and more specifically, a Brazilian, and a woman. I am fascinated by the media's power to influence attitudes, behaviors, and social change. As a child in Brazil in the early 1980s I was mesmerized by television. I loved waking up early with my brother and sister to watch TV before the sun rose and my mother woke up. I also recall how disappointed I was that the most interesting shows always came on late in the evening, after an announcement from the military government stating that the following program was inappropriate for minors and that if a government official knocked on the door and found kids watching it, the parents were risking jail time and persecution. The only thing that kept me from sneaking out and secretly watching TV was the fear that the censors would come and take my mom away.
As the years went by the media installed in me a different kind of fear: I began to be terrified of communists. Although I wasn't quite sure what or who they were, I learned from TV and from my grandpa's reading of the paper that they were violent, they started protests, carried weapons, and they opposed any kind of order. The media also taught me that the communists especially opposed the military officials, who they'd put against the big wall and shoot to death if they had the chance. As the granddaughter of a navy captain who worked for the military government's security department, I was very concerned that the communists would cause harm to my family. It was not until I was a teenager and the country was slowly heading towards a true democratic state that I began to question mediated texts. I became upset, or better yet, angry, at producers, journalists, advertisers, and soap operas writers for sending irresponsible messages to the public. I was very naive since the political climate of the time did not allow for any freedom, and many died during the quest for a democratic state.
It was through music, television and the papers that I slowly witnessed great changes in a country that was fighting for democracy. I distinctly remember the images of exiled artists, politicians, and civilians who were coming back to Brazil after the political amnesty had been granted. I remember seeing them on television walking down the stairs of the airplane in Rio de Janeiro. They looked so happy. Another set of television images that stuck to my brain date back to 1985 when I was just nine years old. After 20 years, a civilian president was elected, Tancredo Neves. I witnessed huge demonstrations on the streets, I saw hope in known and unknown faces. The country was euphoric with all the new possibilities we faced after many years of repression, censorship, and persecution. But in a twisted turn of fate (like those we only thought possible in our popular telenovelas), just one day before Tancredo Neves was to take his place as President he had chest pains and was taken to a hospital, where he died. The Vice President Jose Sarney took his place. What is truly interesting to me about this historic period is how vividly I still remember Antônio Britto Filho, the spokesman for Tancredo Neves, whose face was everywhere in the media and became familiar to every Brazilian because he was the link between us and the president.
By the time I was a teenager I realized I had no other choice but to be
a journalist. I was very idealistic and wanted to fight for truth and make
the media better. I believed that in a democratic state I would be able
to produce media in a way that would give people information, entertainment,
awe, and inspiration, the way that I always thought it should be. At the
time I was a foreign exchange student in California and Brazil was going
through another critical moment in which I was able to participate, thanks
to the media. In 1992 after many student-organized protests, Brazilians
were for the first time impeaching a president, Fernando Collor de Mello.
Through newspapers and magazines I saw the country go out on the streets
in the form of caras pintadas (painted faces ), students and civilians
who painted their faces green and yellow (the colors of our flag) to protest
against a corrupt president. Although the images made me long to be in
Brazil marching on the streets
with my own painted face, they also allowed me to live that moment from a distance.
I knew that being a media producer was my calling. I went back to Brazil and began to study Communications with an emphasis in Journalism and a minor in Film. After just one semester at the University I started to work as a reporter for a newspaper in Rio de Janeiro. I simply could not wait to start working. I believed I could make a difference by making the media much better than when I was a child. After working as a newspaper writer for a year I started to work at an all-news radio station owned by Radio Globo, part of Globo Organization, the biggest media company in Latin America. I could not believe it, I was thrilled! After two years on the job I had some recognition and a certain degree of fame because the program I was involved with was distributed to the whole country. But fame wasn t what I was looking for. I received fan mail and had a press pass with the Globo insignia, my name, and my photograph, everything a young journalist could hope for. Much to my disappointment, working for a renowned media company was not as fulfilling as I had hoped. I experienced all the restraints that usually accompany such corporations. And I felt all the restraints that come with working as a young woman who was surrounded by men. I realized I was not reporting on the truth and I was not making the media industry any more interesting, artistic, or different. I felt powerless and my professional goals began to change.
In order to get a Bachelor s degree in Brazil, students have to write a thesis and so at the end of my undergraduate studies I faced a new challenge: Writing my first academic research. I was re-energized; I realized my interests were shifting towards academia and perhaps earning a Ph.D. I wrote about my experience as a reporter at Radio Globo and as a writer for a show called Memory. I explored the relationship between journalism and collective memory and the fact that although I was not inventing or making up stories, I was most of the time manufacturing news, as Mark Fishman (1980) would say. As I developed my research I also came into contact with great scholars such as Raymond Williams (1961) and began to see that media are much more than journalism; they are cultural productions, art, and forces capable of causing questioning and change even if through a slow and long revolution. My bachelor's thesis on the journalistic construction of collective memory was the first step towards pursuing a Master's Degree at San Francisco State University. It was after having worked as a journalist in a big corporation that I came to the conclusion that alone I could not make better media messages, but by working together with future writers, directors, and producers I definitely would.
In my Master's Thesis at San Francisco State I explored the construction of womanhood through Brazil's most popular TV genres; the primetime telenovela (Latin American soap operas). I realized through the textual analysis of Senhora do Destino ( Master of Destiny ) that social change can flourish from this genre. Senhora offered women the possibility for empowerment by breaking traditional patriarchal roles customarily present in telenovelas and in Latin American societies. Additionally, as a student at San Francisco State I was invited to speak at a cultural studies graduate student conference at Columbia University. I presented a research that demonstrated how costume designing can be used as a powerful tool to disseminate the patriarchal ideology. I also participated in the poster session at this year s National Communication Association Convention with a similar paper that focused on the female costumes in Quentin Tarantino s films Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2.
Furthermore, as a graduate student at San Francisco State I was also able to work as a teaching assistant of Journalism, Media Aesthetics and Popular Culture. These experiences played a fundamental role in preparing me to teach my own classes (Mass Communication Research, Popular Culture and Media Aesthetics.) I am currently a TA for Dr. John Peters's Core Concepts class. I am confident that earning a PhD from the University of Iowa will help me be the most successful in my career plans of being a media and a cultural studies professor and will help me gain the most satisfaction in my personal life as well.
Curriculum Vitae
Publications
I am an international correspondent for a Brazilian news website. Does anyone speak portuguese? You can find my stories at www.sidneyrezende.com