Community journalists in The Guardian: the impacts of the 2016 Olympic Games in favelas

Abstract

This article analyzes the participation of citizen journalists from Rio de Janeiro's favelas in the series “Rio Voices: our olympic odyssey” (“Vozes do Rio: nossa odisseia oli?mpica”, from Brazilian Portuguese) from The Guardian newspaper as testimonies of the impacts of the 2016 Olympic Games in their communities. Based on a theoretical perspective, we discuss the guiding aspects of the citizen journalism (PAIVA, 1998) and approach the hegemonic process as a space of dis- putes (WILLIAMS, 1979). Then, we tension the presence of marginalized local voices, represented by the citizen journalists in the series, inside a hegemonic and international journalistic company, such as The Guardian. We concluded that, through subjective and dissident narratives, the citizen journalists diversified the representations about the sports mega-event. However, their participation did not take place in an egalitarian and democratic way throughout the production stages of the series.