A comunicação comunitária na mediação de informações em territórios marginalizados: uma análise do Fala Manguinhos

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the role of community communication in constructing counter-hegemonic narratives within marginalized territories, using the community newspaper Fala Manguinhos as a case study. Located in the Manguinhos Complex, Rio de Janeiro, the research explores how local communicative practices challenge stigmatizing narratives widely disseminated by mainstream media, which often reduce favelas to stereotypes of violence and precariousness. The study adopts an ethnographic and participatory research approach, rooted in the author’s lived experience as both a resident and contributor to the newspaper. This perspective seeks to understand community communication not merely as an alternative source of information but as a practice of resistance and social transformation. Founded in 2013, Fala Manguinhos emerges as a collective space where residents narrate their stories, claim citizenship, and construct a fairer and more pluralistic representation of the territory. The study provides a historical contextualization of Manguinhos, highlighting how exclusionary urban policies and hegemonic discourses have relegated favelas to invisibility and marginalization. In contrast, the newspaper redefines these dynamics by serving as a pedagogical and political space of contestation. Despite challenges such as limited financial resources and the transition to a digital format, Fala Manguinhos reaffirms the transformative power of community communication by fostering solidarity, belonging, and agency. The dissertation concludes that, by deconstructing stereotypes and amplifying historically silenced voices, community communication plays a central role in the struggle for dignity and social justice in marginalized territories. More than a means of information, initiatives like Fala Manguinhos represent a political act that claims the right to narrate, exist, and resist in an urban space marked by structural inequalities.