TITLE:
Social Merchandising: Human Trafficking in Brazilian Soap Opera
AUTHORS:
Denise Avancini Alves, Maria Helena Weber
KEYWORDS:
Social Merchandising, Brazilian Soap Opera, Human Trafficking
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Journalism and Communication,
Vol.3 No.4,
December
17,
2015
ABSTRACT: Human trafficking is one of today’s largest shadow economies. This theme was included in plot of Salve Jorge, a soap opera in Brazil (broadcasted by Globo Network between October 2012 and May
2013). This article analyzes the social merchandising, an approach given to international human
trafficking in entertainment venues of television, especially, from the telenovela Salve Jorge. The
strategy of inclusion of social issues in the plots is recognized as social merchandising. So, it is in
this privileged media space that the story of a social problem is also constituted. The study focuses
on the discussion of the power of the telenovela to dramatize issues of public interest, having main
broadcasting and audience of Salve Jorge. One seeks to question the maintenance and the impact
of the subject of human trafficking as a dialogue between fiction and reality portrayed by Brazilian
television. The show, Salve Jorge, is based on the real-life story of a Brazilian woman who was led
to Israel and forced into prostitution. Therefore, human trafficking emerges as the central theme
of this study over the main plot of Salve Jorge.