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João Freire Filho holds a master’s and a doctorate in Brazilian Literature from PUC-Rio. He did postdoctoral studies at UFMG. He is a professor in the Department of Communication Fundamentals of the School of Communication of the Federal University of Rio Janeiro and the Postgraduate Program in Communication and Culture of the same institution. Researcher level 1D of CNPq, published several articles and book chapters in Portuguese, English and Spanish on the following topics: history and theory of TV; discourses and media representations; youth studies; celebrities; fans; emotions; imperative of happiness; imaginary of success and management of the affective life; cultural studies. He is author of the book Reinvenções da resistência juvenil: os estudos culturais e as micropolíticas do cotidiano (MauadX, 2007) e he has edited books like Ser feliz hoje: reflexões sobre o imperativo da felicidade, Celebridades do século XXI: transformações no estatuto da fama (with Vera França e Lígia Lana), A promoção do capital humano: mídia, subjetividade e o novo espírito do capitalismo (with Maria das Graças Pinto) and Estudos de televisão: diálogos Brasil-Portugal (with Gabriela Borges). He is a member of the Advisory Committee of CNPq in the Communication sub-area. |
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Watching Happiness: TV, Specialists, and the Governance of Private Life
Description Instigated by its cultural centrality and political relevance, I have chosen as a theme of my research project the alleged television decoding of the meanings and paths of happiness, whose most notable common denominator is the emphasis on responsibility, choice, and individual transformation – fundamental values and principles of the neoliberal art of governing. I intend to investigate, more specifically, the role of television guides of happiness in the production of subjects who adopt, in a voluntary way, the regulating functions of governance, in the midst of their search for self-development and personal fulfillment. It does not intend, therefore, to attain and unveil true happiness, existing beyond the distortions or obfuscations of media accounts. I propose, instead, to examine the effects of power associated with preponderant investments in a particular version of the good life, in detriment to other perspectives and representations formulated in the past or that will still be envisioned. How do TV journalism and factual entertainment operate in the definition of the constitutive elements of happiness? What are the projected strategies for monitoring and regulating the most intimate spaces of the body and of life? What models of personality, forms of individual conduct, and patterns of interpersonal relationship are valued? Which identities or lifestyles are pointed out as problematic? On the basis of what truths and authorities? What connections do television programs establish, occasionally, between individual postures and options, on the one hand, and family, community, national, and even global well-being, on the other? These are essential and interrelated questions that I plan to address over the course of research, based on the analysis of television news stories and of factual entertainment programs – broadcast by Brazilian TV, in the beginning of this century – in which the search for happiness increases as a pragmatically feasible, ethically legitimate, and socially relevant intent. The investigative framework of the research foresees the detailed examination of the articulations between strategies of television language and procedures of contemporary subjectification (techniques of self-knowledge, self-care, and self-control). My main objective, therefore, is to evaluate in what ways the materiality of television language (camera position and movement; image editing; sound recording; narrative structure, etc.) contributes to inspiring or encouraging the viewer to act freely in the interest of his or her happiness, by indicating – through the mobilization of exemplary stories and specialized knowledge – options and ethical responsibilities of engagement with the self and its environs. Among other scientific advances, the research aspires to contribute to the formulation of a frame of theoretical reference and methodological tools that expand the understanding of how media artefacts aid in the regulation of the social body, through the activation of the expectations, the anxieties, and the faults of individuals themselves.
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