The extraction ideology: Brazilian pro-agribusiness propaganda in times of climate emergency
Updated: Aug 24
Taylor & Francis
Almost a century since the birth of modern Propaganda Studies, familiar dynamics continue to drive the literature. With the majority of studies coming out of the Global North, localized and culturally specific research from elsewhere is indeed thriving but requires increased visibility and a sustainable platform in order to transcend the status of academic anomaly.
Set against this backdrop, this essay reflects on the interface between pro-agribusiness propaganda and economic development in Brazil, which comes at great expense to forests and other biomes. It begins with a brief discussion of how the terms of this relationship are rooted in a familiar mentality of extraction, traceable throughout the history of Colonial Brazil. It details how current pro-agribusiness sentiment, in a context of climate change and environmental emergency, benefits from a multi-platform digital propaganda infrastructure. This infrastructure is similarly based on a logic of extraction and ties the effective exploitation of natural resources to state sovereignty.
It ends with a brief call for more regionally specific and comparative analyses on how similar operations play out beyond Brazil: not only to raise new empirical evidence, but to further investigate the economic drivers of (political) propaganda as a matter of global concern.
How to cite: Fitzgerald, J., Santini, R. M., & Salles, D. (2025). The extraction ideology: Brazilian pro-agribusiness propaganda in times of climate emergency. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2025.2482564
