Abstract
The ritual murder of an infant by a purported priest of an Afro-Brazilian religion in southern Brazil in 1992 was widely covered by the media of that country and of Argentina, and created moral panics in both societies. When the leaders of a UFO group (a Brazilian woman and her Argentine husband) were also involved in the affair by the police, their combined nationalities provoked different guilt attributions in the news media of both societies. The hierarchies of credibility characteristic of each country determined the presence of distinct “experts” providing explanations for the events in the Argentine and Brazilian media, and led to divergent evaluations about the recurrence of ritual murders, of “satanic sects “ and of the dangerous social consequences of the presence of “sects “ in these societies. The analysis of this case study through the lens of labeling theory, social constructionism and media studies reveals commonalities and differences in the social construction of religious deviance in Brazil and in Argentina.
Keywords
Afro-Brazilian religion; Mercosul; media; sects