The construction of an Amazonian identity and border at Feira do Som, a radio program on public radio Cultura FM

Abstract

There are several public radio stations spread across the country. Rádio Cultura FM is one of the oldest public broadcasters in the Amazon, created in 1977, during the height of the military dictatorship. Since its inception, the station has broadcast Feira do Som almost daily, the only program that has never been discontinued in the almost five decades of operation of the radio. The objective of this article is to show how the economic and social integration of the Amazon was reflected in the Public Communication carried out in the Amazon, reifying a class bias associated with cultural tastes. The research hypothesizes that the broadcaster Cultura FM and the program Feira do Som reinforce a cultural difference that incorporates patterns of class distinction that corroborate a hegemonic construction of the social memory of the city of Belém. As a methodology we use in-depth interviews (Duarte, 2005) with the production of the program and content analysis (Bardin, 2004) of the program and the main results of the research indicate that Feira do Som fulfills its intention to reach a more privileged audience, which is why it perpetuates a hegemonic social memory of the city of Belém. A memory that socially stratifies and constructs distinction (Bourdieu, 2007), using markers to symbolize power and class privileges, such as taste.