ABSTRACT
This chapter provides background knowledge for readers unfamiliar with the Brazilian media system. It focuses on the general market structure of news media and the national media ecology. The alliances between media and groups within the political elite are characteristic of the Brazilian media system's history. Newspapers were tied to individual political projects in the first half of the nineteenth century, and the crown maintained prerogatives for restricting freedom of press. In newsrooms as well as in journalism studies, the intentional selectivity involved in packaging information for a media text is conventionally termed "framing." The charge of denuncismo is still heard in Brazil today, but the problem of the source-journalist relations and facile accusations has been relocated, in a sense. The increased focus on corruption scandals, especially in the PT administration, has possibly come about as a strategy to maintain competitiveness for the Brazilian news media.
