Comunicação e contra-hegemonia : a produção comunicativa como estratégia política do MST

Abstract

This research departs from reflections upon the forms of political action in contemporary society, in which we recognize the existence of social and technological changes, especially in the field of social communication, that allow several subjects to innovate concerning their practices, as well as political changes that challenge those who seek to actualize substantial changes in the hegemonic form of social organization. From the per- spective over the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), the research discusses the inter-relationshipbetween communication and politics and questions how the development of communications has altered the making of politics, if the social movements follow the transformations in this field or if they live the new modes of acting through them; as well as if the communicative practices contribute for the realization of its counter-hegemonic strategies. To verify the above, I analyze the MST’s 5 th National Congress, occurred in 2007, the last congress conducted, an important moment for being a space of political definition and dialogue with the Movement’s grassroots and society in general. It is important, also, for having consolidated a change in the political evaluation over the conformation of social relationships in the countryside and the challenges for the realization of agrarian reform in an unfavorable conjuncture for the popular organizations in Brazil. In this sense, the work points to the limits of MST’s counter-hegemonic action, but also to the potentialities accumulated over its almost thirty years of existence as a movement, and especially those concerning the communications area, as it perceives the action of counter-hegemonic construction as a process that must be started before the effective power take-over.