The extraction ideology: Brazilian pro-agribusiness propaganda in times of climate emergency

Abstract

Almost a century since the birth of modern Propaganda Studies, familiar dynamics continue to drive the literature. With a majority of scholarship emanating from the Global North, localized and culturally specific interventions from elsewhere are thriving, but require increased visibility and a sustainable platform to transcend their status as academic things of wonder. Set against this backdrop, this essay reflects on how pro-agribusiness propaganda interfaces with economic development in Brazil, at the cost of forest and biomes destruction. It begins with a brief discussion of how the terms of this relationship are located in a familiar logic of extraction, historically identifiable in Colonial Brazil. It details how current pro-agribusiness sentiment, in a context of climate change and emergency, benefits from a multi-platform digital propaganda infrastructure. This infrastructure is similarly premised on a logic of extraction and ties the effective exploitation of natural resources to state sovereignty. It ends with a brief call for more region-specific and comparative analysis on how similar operations are manifest beyond Brazil: not only to deduce new empirical insights, but to further inquire the economic drivers of (political) propaganda as a matter of global concern.