Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the presence of American imagery in Brazilian media. This study will focus on magazines that circulated throughout the Cold War, specifically 1945-1960, when in Western media discourse there was the construction of an identity from the deconstruction of its other, in this case, communism. During this period, traditional aspects of Brazilian imaginary began to model themselves on American culture, which was taken as a paradigm. I’m using the Americanism here as a discursive web in which many elements are built in, such as the ideal of democracy, progress, tradition, work, and freedom. The concept of paradigm is conceptualized as a cultural model in a broad sense, involving issues of behavior, political organization, consumption patterns, as well as in this specific case, a culture of seeing and looking, that is meant by ideal and intended to be followed.