Reconfigurations of popular communication in convergence: an approach to alternative internet experiences in Brazil

Abstract

The article explores the reconfigurations of popular communication in Brazil within the context of digital convergence, focusing on alternative Internet experiences that resist the logics of monopolistic digital platforms. It examines how digitalization, first, and later platformization have transformed the distribution of power within communication systems and cultural industries, as well as the emergence of diverse actors in the current scenario. The study combines the framework of Political Economy of Communication with the Latin American tradition of Popular and Alternative Communication to map who inhabits and constitutes these renewed zones of resistance. It identifies three key levels of organization: the development of the Brazilian free software movement; the associative networks that build community connectivity infrastructure; and the organizations mobilized around demands for the protection of civil rights online and the democratic regulation of the Internet. Methodologically, this exploratory-descriptive study draws on primary sources —especially semi-structured interviews conducted with key academic and social movement actors in Brazil— as well as a wide range of secondary sources, including official documents from social movements, journalistic notes by popular Internet advocates, and information from their websites. Ultimately, the paper highlights that these initiatives offer original and creative technological solutions while simultaneously representing a political and social alternative grounded in the power of knowledge born from lived experience.