Question

nature of communication in brazil

Answer 1

From the 16th to the 18th century, systematic scientific activities and the communication of ideas of modern science were almost nonexistent in Brazil, which at that time was a Portuguese colony of exploitation. The country had a small population, most of which was illiterate, and elementary education remained in the hands of the Jesuits until the mid-eighteenth century. In the 18th century the press and the publication of books were prohibited; therefore the few individuals who had access to new scientific knowledge were exclusive to the dominant social sectors and had that access through education abroad. Throughout this period the colonial economic structure - anchored on slavery and based on the exploitation of natural resources, mining and agricultural products, such as sugar cane - did not require a significant scientific and technical development. The needs of the Portuguese government related to science and technology (S&T), were connected to economic, political and immediate military interests: navigation, astronomy, cartography, mining, plantations, identification and use of natural products.

Following by the Pombal Reform, the Academia Científica do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro Scientific Academy) was established in 1772 with the aim of being devoted to physics, chemistry, natural history, medicine, pharmacy and agriculture (Marques 2005). In 1779 it closed its doors. Soon after, the Sociedade Literária do Rio de Janeiro (Literary Society of Rio de Janeiro) was created, but was closed in 1794 for political reasons and its members imprisoned and charged under the pro-independence conspiracy of the Colony (Silva 2002). Both associations pretended to disseminate aspects of science among stakeholders of the local elite.

The first, yet still very limited, consistent manifestation of science communication in Brazil occurred in the early 19th century. It was due to an over-riding political motive: the Portuguese Court had arrived in Brazil and it was necessary to create the conditions for the administration of the metropolis and the colony to run. Ports were opened, the ban on printing was discontinued and the first institutions linked to science and techniques were created, such as the Real Horto(Royal Garden) (1808), the Real Academia Militar(Royal Military Academy) (1810) and the Museu Real(Royal Museum) (1818). The first newspapers such as A Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro and O Patriota, published articles and news related to science (Oliveira 1998).

Over the next three decades, the number of publications slowly increased. A few of them, such as the Miscelanea scientifica (1835) and the Minerva brasiliense (1843), published articles on S&T. Ideas and proposals for the development of science and its communication arose from the pioneering initiative of a few intellectuals. Engineer and professor Cândido Batista de Oliveira advocated the implementation of popular courses of physics and chemistry in his project for creating an astronomical observatory1. Evaristo da Veiga, an influential journalist, claimed the importance of natural sciences for the country, particularly physics, botany and mineralogy2. These propositions, however, did not find fertile grounds.

In the second half of the 19th century, science communication intensified throughout the world, in conjunction with the second Industrial Revolution. A wave of optimism regarding scientific and technical advancement - expressed through the great Universal Exhibitions that started in 1851 - traveled the world and reached the country, albeit on a small scale. The communication of science attempted, as one of its striking features at the time, to highlight the applications of sciences in industrial arts. During this period a great, yet scattered, interest for issues related to science arose among the elite Brazilians. Throughout the 19th century, approximately 7,000 newspapers were created in Brazil, of which about 300 possessed titles linked to science - especially by 1860, with a peek in 1875 - which clearly demonstrates the increase in interest for subjects related to S&T (Massarani and Moreira 2002).

Cândido Batista de Oliveira (director), Guilherme Schüch de Capanema, Freire Alemão and Emmanuel Liais edited the magazine Revista Brazileira - Jornal de Sciencias, Letras e Artes(1857). During the first phase of existence of this magazine, from 1857 to 1861, approximately 30% of the articles were scientific or technical texts, 22% were reports or documents and 20% were science communication articles. The remaining articles were essays, poems and short notes. In 1857 Cândido Batista published an article on Foucault´s pendulum experiment, which was conducted in Rio de Janeiro on October 1851 (Moreira and Massarani 1997). The original demonstration on the Earth›s rotation with the use of a large pendulum was made by Léon Foucault in February 1851 in Paris, and it aroused great interest.