Neoliberalism associated with concepts that come from the cultural industry and society of entertainment seems to have ideologically transformed the media into an agency of the penal system. On the other hand, the agencies of social communication that intertwined with the logic of the market began to foster a repressive discourse of criminal violence lead to the metamorphosis of information into news-merchandise and spread the culture of exaltation of the penal system. Therefore, news about crime also impacts the status of merchandise to be sold by the entertainment industry. For the sale of the news to reach satisfactory levels, it is important that the news be explored both in imagery and spectacularized ways. The media, as
a set of communication means that aims at mass production ceases to have simple
communicative function and begins to manipulate the manner of punishment, as well as to exercise the punitive power that, in essence, is controlled by the state. In this context,
television stands as the communication tool most prevalent in Brazilian homes. This presence promotes the idea of criminalization of poverty itself and spreads the practice of violence. Given this situation, media agencies exert repressive power through the enemies that are to be fought. Such enemies are akin to criminal demons and are treated as monsters in a paradoxical dyad: they are considered to be unworthy of human conviviality but, at the same time, are considered necessary for the entertainment of society. The case of the Bandeirantes TV’s cameraman illustrates some aspects of this reality. The analysis of the problem presented was carried out mainly on the basis of theoretical contributions from Michael Foucault, Adorno and Horkheimer, Guy Debord and Zaffaroni.
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