Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
the communicational sphere, radically transforming the way it works. The fact that
all of the production depends on its dynamics involves, on one side, that it becomes
the essential territory to control and mobilize a kind of work that no longer coincides
with employment. It also involves, on the other side, that all kinds of work
become communicative works, and carry within an unprecedented potential of freedom.
In this new kind of cleavage, the media democratization becomes the potential
site of struggle and production of work in general.
The work of rights
A recent media campaign exemplifies, unintentionally, the terms of this new
struggle. Publishing news about alleged irregularities in the cultural sponsorship
programs of Petrobras 9 , a newspaper published these headlines: “The culture of tax
evasion;” “All parties involved in the ‘commerce’ of service invoices are acting unlawfully”,
only to admit right after that: “Producers of events that had worked for
Infoglobo, which publishes the newspapers O Globo and Extra, also took advantage
of expedients to hire professionals who used irregular invoices 10 .”
In the heat of controversy, some cultural producers have launched a movement
(ReCultura 11 ) and a manifesto: “For a specific regulatory framework on cultural
activity.” 12 The movement correctly states that the problem is not just about the “tax
and fiscal issues, but about the new working relationships.”
The work of communication and culture production dodges, at the same time,
labor and tax laws. ReCultura considers that “in spite of having its own specificities,
the question of culture is not an exception: it has the same functioning rules as all the
autonomous workers and those in precarious employment situations.” Therefore, one
of the central issues of ReCultura is to relieve the individual worker from taxes (as well
as the small businesses), and to do this not only in the cultural area, recognizing it as
9. Translator’s note: Brazilian state oil company.
10. O Globo, August 2, 2009, pp. 1-3.
11. On that same day, in the same newspaper, there was a long article by rapper MV Bill called “Hip
Hop é compromisso” (“Hip Hop is commitment”).
12. See http://re-cultura.blogspot.com.
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