Main article: Telecommunications in Brazil
See also: Media ownership in Brazil
Former President Dilma Rousseff at Jornal Nacional news program. Rede Globo is the second largest commercial television network of the world.[295]
The Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, the first newspaper published in the country, began to circulate on 10 September 1808.[297] The largest newspapers nowadays are Folha de S.Paulo (from the state of São Paulo), Super Notícia (Minas Gerais 296.799), O Globo (RJ 277.876) and O Estado de S. Paulo (SP 235.217).[298]
Radio broadcasting began on 7 September 1922, with a speech by then President Pessoa, and was formalized on 20 April 1923 with the creation of "Radio Society of Rio de Janeiro."[299]
Television in Brazil began officially on 18 September 1950, with the founding of TV Tupi by Assis Chateaubriand.[300] Since then television has grown in the country, creating large public networks such as Globo, SBT, Record and Bandeirantes. Today it is the most important factor in popular culture of Brazilian society, indicated by research showing that as much as 67%[301][302] of the general population follow the same daily soap opera broadcast. Digital Television, using the SBTVD standard (based on the Japanese standard ISDB-T), was adopted 29 June 2006 and launched on 2 November 2007.[303] In May 2010, Brazil launched TV Brasil Internacional, an international television station, initially broadcasting to 49 countries.[304]
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Brazil and Brazilian people
Population density of Brazilian municipalities.
The first census in Brazil was carried out in 1872 and recorded a population of 9,930,478.[308] From 1880 to 1930, 4 million Europeans arrived.[309] Brazil's population increased significantly between 1940 and 1970, because of a decline in the mortality rate, even though the birth rate underwent a slight decline. In the 1940s the annual population growth rate was 2.4%, rising to 3.0% in the 1950s and remaining at 2.9% in the 1960s, as life expectancy rose from 44 to 54 years[310] and to 72.6 years in 2007.[311] It has been steadily falling since the 1960s, from 3.04% per year between 1950 and 1960 to 1.05% in 2008 and is expected to fall to a negative value of –0.29% by 2050[312] thus completing the demographic transition.[313]
In 2008, the illiteracy rate was 11.48%[314] and among the youth (ages 15–19) 1.74%. It was highest (20.30%) in the Northeast, which had a large proportion of rural poor.[315] Illiteracy was high (24.18%) among the rural population and lower (9.05%) among the urban population.[316]
Race and ethnicity
Main article: Race and ethnicity in Brazil
According to the National Research by Household Sample (PNAD) of 2008, 48.43% of the population (about 92 million) described themselves as White; 43.80% (about 83 million) as Pardo (brown), 6.84% (about 13 million) as Black; 0.58% (about 1.1 million) as Asian; and 0.28% (about 536 thousand) as Amerindian (officially called indígena, Indigenous), while 0.07% (about 130 thousand) did not declare their race.[317]In 2007, the National Indian Foundation estimated that Brazil has 67 different uncontacted tribes, up from their estimate of 40 in 2005. Brazil is believed to have the largest number of uncontacted peoples in the world.[318]
Since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, considerable miscegenation between Amerindians, Europeans, and Africans has taken place in all regions of the country (with European ancestry being dominant nationwide according to the vast majority of all autosomal studies undertaken covering the entire population, accounting for between 65% to 77%).[322][323][324][325]
Brazilian society is more markedly divided by social class lines, although a high income disparity is found between race groups, so racism and classism can be conflated. Socially significant closeness to one racial group is taken in account more in the basis of appearance (phenotypes) rather than ancestry, to the extent that full siblings can pertain to different "racial" groups.[326] Socioeconomic factors are also significant, because a minority of pardos are likely to start declaring themselves White or Black if socially upward.[327] Skin color and facial features do not line quite well with ancestry (usually, Afro-Brazilians are evenly mixed and European ancestry is dominant in Whites and pardos with a significant non-European contribution, but the individual variation is great).[325][328][329][330]
The brown population (officially called pardo in Portuguese, also colloquially moreno)[331][332] is a broad category that includes caboclos (assimilated Amerindians in general, and descendants of Whites and Natives), mulatos (descendants of primarily Whites and Afro-Brazilians) and cafuzos (descendants of Afro-Brazilians and Natives).[331][332][333][334][335] People of considerable Amerindian ancestry form the majority of the population in the Northern, Northeastern and Center-Western regions.[336]
Higher percents of Blacks, mulattoes and tri-racials can be found in the eastern coast of the Northeastern region from Bahia to Paraíba[335][337] and also in northern Maranhão,[338][339] southern Minas Gerais[340] and in eastern Rio de Janeiro.[335][340] From the 19th century, Brazil opened its borders to immigration. About five million people from over 60 countries migrated to Brazil between 1808 and 1972, most of them of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Arab origin.[341][342]
