UC Santa Cruz

This dissertation employs 18 months of ethnographic research (i.e., experienced-based social, cultural, and legal inquiry) to explore Brazil’s new Internet Bill of Rights, the Marco Civil da Internet (MCI), and its impact on the poor and working class populations of Rio de Janeiro. Through its call for openness, promotion of Internet access as a civil right, and protection of net neutrality, the MCI seeks to advance democratic Internet governance in Brazil, a country known for its great social and economic inequality. Brazil has a population of approximately 210 million people and, as of 2016, roughly 95 million Brazilians lacked access to the Internet. This fact is relevant because Article 4 of the MCI promotes “the right of Internet access to all.” By enacting the MCI, the Brazilian government has seemingly envisioned universal Internet access as a core feature of their attempt to overcome decades of societal inequalities and help achieve a more authentic democracy. As legislation, the MCI is a laudable model of democratic Internet governance. I argue, however, that the disjunctive nature of Brazil’s democratic project reveals corresponding disjunctions in implementing the MCI’s objectives. By examining the significance of Internet governance that attempts to advance civil rights through the promotion of Internet access, my work uses the Internet and digital technology as a lens to explore the meaning of democracy in the Brazilian context.