ABSTRACT
This chapter draws attention to the powerful Brazilian media, more specifically, TV Globo telenovelas, which are marked by a special characteristic referred to as the “open text”: the ongoing relationship between producers and viewers that is taken into account by the daily grind of shooting, sometimes even on the day an episode airs. The present research is a case study of the Brazilian telenovela Velho Chico. We explore how the open text was used in a novel disruptive way: by using a subjective camera. The program represents a key moment illustrating how producers dealt with a crisis (the death of the protagonist), and how they aimed to address the audience and bring them into the program in a new participatory way. Crucial to our analysis is the fact that the subjective camera placed viewers in the place of the leading actor through POV (point of view) and direct address. It disrupted traditional ways of making telenovelas and made possible a new type of audience inclusion that represents, aesthetically, what has been suggested in general about Brazilian telenovelas: as an open text, the program is in direct and constant conversation with audiences, and that such strategy changes and adapts to current events
