The perverse role of the mainstream media in destabilizing labor laws

Abstract

With an admirable ability to create myths, the mass media have a great responsibility in the popular imagination for the mirage of a paradisiacal world: that of entrepreneurship. These companies spread the fraudulent mantra “be your own boss” when it would be more honest to say “voluntarily enslave yourself without causing consequences, punishments, charges or lawsuits to the business community”. The mainstream media, or corporate media, plays a key role in glamorizing entrepreneurship. Claiming that such an initiative is “in the DNA of Brazilians”, and “in the spirit of our people” is commonplace in partner journalism with patronage. “Fifty-two million Brazilians have their own businesses”, is something said on TV with naturalness and a smile on the faces of the presenters, with the intention of making such data seem like a breakthrough. In practice, there are millions of unemployed, people who have no choice but to go out in search of a few pennies every day doing odd jobs. Of the companies operating in the country, 70% are individual microentrepreneurs (MEI). Calling a street vendor an entrepreneur is yet another euphemism for the enchanted world detached from real life. All this speech serves the robust business community, eager to bury the achievements of workers' rights. It also portrays the particularity of the mainstream media in Brazil, which is in the hands of half a dozen families, a portrait of the concentration of power and income. A media that acts in its own interest and that of large advertising companies, to the detriment of the interests of workers