‘War in Rio’ (or How the military occupation in favela was represented in O Globo’s journalistic maps)

Abstract

The favela occupation by military forces in Rio de Janeiro is reported by O Globo newspaper as a war and the maps used to illustrate the subject are important to confirm this idea. News about a “War in Rio” could be represented as a media trick to increase contrasts between favela and the city itself, once the favela area is often putted as a violent territory and people who live in there are always considered the “other”. Considering the way that O Globo uses the maps has a strong heritage at american and german’s journalistic cartography about war, this intends to analyze the role of the maps to construct a train of line in with the favela is the territory to attack in order to save the city. In this case, the heroes are the police force and people who live at favela are the enemy. Therefore, the article will analyze three different maps used in O Globo about a major police operation at Complexo da Penha, Vila Cruzeiro e Complexo do Alemão, when this kind of theme reached international interest. We consider that story built by these maps goes from a territory threat in Rio de Janeiro until it finally achieve the peace.