Media democratization in Brazil: achievements and future challenges

This article focuses on the achievements in the field of media democratization in Brazil, underlining the current challenges that public communication systems face in the light of the persistence of the misuse of these structures by politicians for their own interests. The role that the public media platform can have in the democratic project is examined, including how it can assist policymakers concerning vital national as well as global issues. The slow democratization of Brazil during recent decades, however, has taken place while not altogether disassociated from the authoritarian legacy that has characterized the formation of Brazilian society. Nonetheless, the acknowledgement that the mainstream media have become more professional, including wider voices in the mediated sphere, is not reason enough to proclaim the end of the struggles for media democratization

Constructing public oral health policies in Brazil: issues for reflection

This paper addresses the construction of public oral health policies in Brazil by reviewing the available literature. It includes a discussion of the social responses given by the Brazilian State to oral health policies and the relationship of these responses with the ideological oral health movements that have developed globally, and that have specifically influenced oral health policies in Brazil. The influence of these movements has affected a series of hegemonic practices originating from both Market Dentistry and Preventive and Social Dentistry in Brazil. Among the state activities that have been set into motion, the following stand out: the drafting of a law to regulate the fluoridation of the public water supply, and the fluoridation of commercial toothpaste in Brazil; epidemiological surveys to analyze the status of the Brazilian population's oral health; the inclusion of oral health in the Family Health Strategy (Estratégia de Saúde da Família - ESF); the drawing up of the National Oral Health Policy, Smiling Brazil (Brasil Sorridente). From the literature consulted, the progressive expansion of state intervention in oral health policies is observed. However, there remains a preponderance of hegemonic "dental" practices reproduced in the Unified Public Health Service (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS) and the Family Health Strategy