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CU �鶹ӰԺ sociologist Molly Todd finds that community newspapers were vital for people living in Brazil’s favelas during the COVID-19 pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Rio de Janeiro in early 2020, residents of the Maré and Rocinha faced a crisis of communication. Public health messages in Brazil were contradictory—including the government’s denial of COVID-19. Like so many under-resourced and overlooked communities, the roughly 210,000 residents of these favelas received information laden with jargon, misinformation and directives that did not align with their daily realities.��

Fortunately, inside the favelas, local newspapers like Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça were picking up the slack. They offered readers humor and solidarity while providing their communities with a shared sense of direction that helped them survive the pandemic.��

For Molly Todd, an assistant teaching professor in the �鶹ӰԺ’s Department of Sociology and the International Affairs Program, this grassroots journalism stood out.��

Molly Todd, a CU �鶹ӰԺ assistant teaching professor of sociology, and her research colleagues found that community newspapers were an important source of information in Brazil's favela neighborhoods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We really wanted to understand what it was they were doing in the face of a global pandemic that made them such important pillars of their communities,” she says.��

Todd and an interdisciplinary team of co-authors recently in the Journal of Urban Affairs examining how these two community-run newspapers helped guide residents through the pandemic and endure it with dignity. The project, which included scholars from Brazil and the U.S., offers a new lens on crisis response and who gets to tell the ensuing stories.��

City within a city

Brazil’s favelas are often misrepresented in the media. They tend to be depicted as chaotic and dangerous places that tourists to sunny Rio de Janeiro should avoid. While favelas do struggle with crime and drug trafficking, they’re also rich with social networks, political activism and neighborhood pride.��

Speaking of the teams behind Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça, Todd says, “These are journalists who are rooted in the places they report on. They’re talking about things that are very much on the minds of folks living next door in these communities.”��

Residents of Maré and Rocinha, which are densely populated urban areas often excluded from formal infrastructure, have long relied on information from community sources. When COVID-19 arrived, this network became even more critical.��

“In many cases, favelas are characterized by both hyper surveillance and neglect. The state is failing to meet the basic needs of its residents while disproportionately policing them—even though they’re Brazilian citizens who should have the full rights that other citizens have,” Todd says.��

During the pandemic, state-led responses were lacking. Official communication was slow and often misleading. Moreover, widely shared health advice was rarely tailored to the unique realities of favela life.��

That’s where the community newspapers stepped in.��

“They were very clear about the fact that they wanted to be sources of credible information, sources of timely information and sources of information that were contextualized for the community,” Todd says.��

Stay safe, stay sane

Todd and her team of researchers collaborated to analyze how Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça responded to the pandemic. One team member, Vanessa Guerra, was interested in a central theme early on: resilience.��

“We often talk about resilience as if it’s just ‘bouncing back,’ but that misses a lot of the bigger story behind-the-scenes of how people survive,” Todd says. She adds that discussions of resilience need to include a critique of the systemic oppression that produces the need to be resilient in the first place.

Informationally, the favela newspapers filled gaps left by the state. They ran myth-busting columns, answered readers’ questions and provided updates on local infection rates. They provided regular COVID updates and used WhatsApp to circulate infographics, FAQs and emergency contacts.��

But information was just the start. The papers also nurtured archives of community culture and memorials for those who didn’t survive. One article collected portraits of neighbors lost to the virus. Another ran a photo series of the newly empty public spaces in Maré paired with poetic reflections from the community.��

“They were doing this work of archiving sort of how a community comes through a moment like this together,” Todd says.��

Who gets to speak?

Mainstream coverage of Brazil’s favelas often skews toward the negative, focusing on issues like violence and poverty. During the pandemic, that narrative sharpened to portray the neighborhoods as volatile, ungovernable zones where health guidance was ignored.��

The favela newspapers told a different story—one of hope, community and organizing for a future. That was something Todd and her fellow researchers wanted to capture and preserve.

Todd has continued to explore questions of representation, voice and power in other projects related to Maré. At CU �鶹ӰԺ, she organized an interactive visual and textual library exhibit called . Hosted in from September 2025 to February 2026, the exhibit was intended to “[c]enter and display the intellectual and artistic production of the mostly Black and indigenous residents of Complexo da Maré. . . . The project leverages art’s pedagogical potential with the hope to contribute to a more nuanced public understanding of favelas.”��

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“There’s so much history of academics just extracting from communities, writing about them and then leaving. It’s not really been a reciprocal process,” says CU �鶹ӰԺ scholar Molly Todd, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with local communities on projects that benefit their interests. (Photo: Wolf Schram/Unsplash)

Reflecting on the work her team put in, Todd asks, “How can we produce a memory of a place marked by so many erasures? Can this memory help us imagine a different future? How do we encounter unfamiliar places in ethical ways and relate across our differences?”

Visitors were able to walk through a favela story on their own terms, feeling immersed in the ways neighbors cared for each other and allowed creativity to thrive even in an incredibly dark time. They also took in workshops, panels and tours hosted by artists in residence surrounding the exhibit’s opening.��

Artists participating in the exhibit included Henrique Gomes da Silva, Andreza Jorge, Paulo Vitor Lino, Wallace Lino, Dayana Sabany, Francisco Valdean and Antonello Veneri. Exhibit organizers included Nicholas Barnes,��Andreza Jorge, Henrique Gomes da Silva, Desirée Poets and Molly Todd.

What we can learn from favela newsrooms

Though Todd’s study and the Maré from the Inside exhibit focus on Brazil, she believes the lessons within apply far beyond the borders of Latin America.��

“If we want people to feel safe and informed in a crisis, we need to think about trust,” she says.��

Top-down communication often fails to resonate with marginalized communities, breeding distrust and false narratives. Local journalism led by people with lived experience can be the link that builds enduring relationships in their communities.��

As for her involvement, Todd reiterates the importance of collaborating with local communities on projects that benefit their interests.��

“There’s so much history of academics just extracting from communities, writing about them and then leaving. It’s not really been a reciprocal process,” she says.��

“To be fair, our project still wasn’t reciprocal in the sense that we have our names on the article and the journalists don’t. In my eyes, I would like to see even more collective kinds of scholarship in the future.”��

Looking ahead, Todd hopes this work starts deeper conversations about collaborative knowledge production and whose voices shape our collective memory. In a world facing climate disasters and political upheaval, she sees an urgent need for models that put local knowledge and lived experiences front and center.��

“If we’re going to build more just societies,” she says, “we need to pay attention to … people telling stories about their own communities and find ways to amplify their voices.”

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