Human rights, television popular culture and the telenovela

Abstract

The application of human rights to mass communication television pro gramming gives rise to a search for entertainment that is empowering. One genre that has managed to es cape the restrictions of commercial Ism and resulted in a genuine form of popular culture is the Brazilian telenovela. Any attempt to relate human rights In communication to popular televi sion culture might seem to be a fu tlle endeavour. Such an attempt ap pears to involve two incompatible Ideas: highmindedness and Ideallsm on the one hand, and free choice and commerciallam on the other. However, there could be a way out. Somewhere there might be a way that popular culture as expressed through television might also be em powering, instead of mainly com mercially exploitative and cynically manipulative. The one example that springs to mind is the telenovela of Brazil. This paper proposes to deal with the concept of human rights and broadcasting, especially as it affects the present SABC, then to look briefly at some concepts of popular culture and then to end off by discussing the Brazilian tele novella as a possible reconciliation of the two opposing Ideas, of human rights and entertainment. This article is based on a paper that was read at a RAU Seminar "Com munication Interactions in popular culture", that was held in Johannes burg on October 22, 1993,