Enem’s official advertising represented in media: a look at the exam as an educational device ^{1 2 3 4}

Abstract

The article analyzes Enem and its representation in advertising, in favor of its visibility and credibility as a national policy for evaluating access to higher education. To look at Enem as a device is to understand it in the power relations game announced as indicative of equality of opportunity that produces subjects. The research considers the centrality of culture and the constitutive role of discourses that produce meanings about Enem. We analyzed government-produced advertising videos from 2009 to 2018, broadcast on open TV, and the Geekie Games Enem Platform. The research pointed out that such productions seek to “sell” a better future opportunity, available to all who deserve it, reinforcing the political and educational discourse that mobilizes (and paralyzes) the institutions.

Keywords
assessments in large scale; National High School Exam; advertisements; science teaching

Resumo

Este artigo analisa o Enem e sua representação na publicidade, em prol de sua visibilidade e credibilidade como política nacional de avaliação de acesso ao ensino superior. Olhar o Enem como dispositivo é entendê-lo no jogo de relações de poder, anunciado como indicativo de igualdade de oportunidades que produz sujeitos. A pesquisa considera a centralidade da cultura e o papel constitutivo dos discursos que produzem significados sobre o Enem. Analisamos vídeos publicitários produzidos, de 2009 a 2018, pelo governo, veiculados em TV aberta e na Plataforma Geekie Games Enem. A pesquisa apontou que tais produções procuram “vender” uma oportunidade de futuro melhor, ao alcance de todos que o merecerem, reforçando o discurso político e educacional que mobiliza (e paralisa) as instituições.

Palavras-chave
avaliações em larga escala; Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio; publicidade; ciências

Introduction

The democratization of higher education in Brazil is part of public policies for improvements in expanding the opportunity for access, permanence and quality at this level of education. Large-scale assessments, such as the National High School Exam (Enem), are part of these policies, the results of which are used for investments at different levels of education and as an indicator of quality in education, starting to play roles that go beyond gauging of learning for the purpose of monitoring students.

Allied to democratization for access to higher education, changes in basic education in search of a “good” education are announced, through an innovation discourse that would be at the heart of such changes. For Silva (2010), this “good” education is part of a social project that prioritizes the market and has education as an instrument to obtain economic goals compatible with this interest. The insertion of young people in the job market and the search for professional success are part of this scenario, which is related to access to higher education and, in this case, Enem represents the gateway to this success, “a path of opportunities”, as it has been broadcasted by the media in recent years (Brasil, 2014a).

Ferreira (2008), in his doctoral thesis, gives an overview of the innovation discourse in Brazilian educational reforms, showing that, since the 1961 reform, in the creation of the first Law of Guidelines and Bases (LDB), the announcement of innovation was present, with the purpose of innovating being announced in the reorganization of teaching levels, in the objectives of education, or in the guidelines for reorganizing teaching content and for the use of current and innovative resources, in short, in different dimensions and facets, pedagogical politician referred to innovation as a driver of improvement in education.

Thus, we can see that, since the promulgation of LDB/1996, in the National Curriculum Guidelines or in the National Curriculum Parameters (PCN) (Brasil, 2006), this discourse has been constitutive of the proposals for changes. More recently, with the publication of the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) (Brazil, 2018) and the New High School (Brazil, 2017), there was the invocation of the “novelty” of promoting a national curriculum organization and a high school with students’ choice through its formative path. For Ferreira (2008), the constant invocation of the “new” works as an appeal (even from marketing) to institutions, to announce (and carry out in their practices) the novelty as a way of improving these practices. On educational reforms, Popkewitz (199, p. 11) considers that

the “common sense” of reform is to consider intervention as progress. A better world will emerge as a result of new programs, new technologies and new organizations that increase efficiency, savings and effectiveness. Change is seen as introducing a program or technology into a school or classroom.

Since the late 1990s, linked to curriculum policies for high school that encourage the production of "new" curriculum proposals in line with the guidelines of the National Curriculum Guidelines for Basic Education and policies for training teachers, Enem was created with the objective of monitoring students' learning and evaluating high school. In 2004, there was a movement to change its purpose⁵, when it started classifying students for the “Programa Universidade Para Todos” (University for All Program, in English, or ProUni) and, starting in 2009, the use of Enem results underwent an even more significant change, when it started to be used, in part or exclusively, in the selection process for admission to Brazilian public universities through the “Sistema de Seleção Unificado” (Unified Selection System, or Sisu). Also, as of 2015, the “Fundo de Financiamento Estudantil” (Student Financing Fund, or Fies) started to use the Enem results as a criterion for financing higher education courses (Brazil, 2014b).

We noticed that since its creation, Enem has taken up space in the media (newspapers, magazines, advertisements), when mentioned in reports that explained to society its purposes and the importance of evaluation as an instrument for assessing student performance at the end of teaching medium, or in a second moment, when the exam started to be used as a “gateway” for entering higher education, especially by Sisu, increasing the space in publications, both due to problems found in the organization and the application of the exame, the results and ranking of schools, as well as discussions about changes in primary education and high school, as a way to improve the quality of education and student performance in evaluations, especially in public schools, since private schools usually perform better than public ones.

With a notable presence in the mass media, the institutions and courses evaluated started to occupy levels in terms of ranking, with the results being published, a form of advertising for educational institutions and also a way of positioning and classifying them along with their students, normalizing, “year after year, to be exposed to a plethora of new statistical data and results from national and international exams that always seem to confirm the belief in a constant and significant drop in the level of student performance” (Carvalho, 2007, p. 307). Matheus and Lopes (2014) highlight that the dissemination of pronouncements that point to the valuation of rankings of educational institutions, even though it is not necessarily performed by governmental actions, is validated by the media and by the school institutions themselves, which make the results favorable institutional marketing strategies .

It is worth noting that in 2017, considering that the Basic Education Assessment System (Saeb) has more adequate instruments for assessing the quality of education offered in Brazilian education systems and schools, Inep announced the end of the annual dissemination of averages by school grades obtained the examination by high school graduating students, known as the "Enem by school" (INEP, 2017). According to INEP (2017), although the exam provides reliable information as to the proficency of individual participants, it was not the goal of Enem to provide information to primary education schools or networks. Still according to the note of the Institute (2017),

Inep never ventured the comparison and the consequent public exposure of schools that, once ranked by the press through Enem by school, cannot avoid labels that do not contribute to pedagogical improvement or to interventions that aim to improve the quality of teaching

(Inep, 2017, n/p.).

Inep’s note about the decision to close the dissemination of results recognizes that the results of the exam were used by institutions as an indicator of education quality, "labeling" the institutions and also the people. For Carvalho (2007), the theme of quality of education is no longer a subject restricted to specialists and education professionals to gain space in the public debate, becoming the object of attention of the most varied segments of society, with a notable presence in media mass communication.

In addition to reports and news produced by the media involving a range of information and questions about Enem, extensive publicity has been produced year after year by the federal government, giving visibility and legitimizing this evaluation policy. For Silva (2013), advertising may be able to challenge individuals, producing meanings that are coated with reality and framing the population within a certain system of ideas and values, incorporating, according to Gomes (2011), emotional arguments for getting closer to the spectators' daily lives and spreading a sense of identification with the audience.

As we understand that advertising not only informs and gives visibility, but creates meanings for Enem, in this article we analyze speeches and representations of the exam in official advertisements circulating on public TV, trying to show that such speeches legitimize and institute this evaluation policy as “a path of opportunities” to be followed by the subjects.

Cultural perspective as a prerequisite for analysis

When investigating Enem advertisements in a cultural perspective, we consider culture as a set of practices that organize and regulate social practices and have practical effects (Hall, 1997a). Thus, we understand discourses as producers of meanings, which are not in objects, in things, not even in words, but which are established by us, in such a determined way that it becomes natural (Hall, 1997a). For the author, the concern with the production of meanings that, at first, was linked to the functioning of language, came to be considered due to the role of discourse in culture.

We emphasize that our look at discourse considers Michel Foucault's theorization, in which discourse is understood as “a set of statements, insofar as it is based on the same discursive formation” (Foucault, 2015, p. 143), with the statements being elements of the speeches that, in turn, are organized in discursive formations that put the elements of the device into play, such as subjects, institutions, political events and economic processes, among others.

Regarding the statement, the author considers that this is not a proposition, a phrase, an act of speech, but a function of existence that belongs to the signs and, based on it, these signs are given or not felt. But, “far from being the principle of individualization of the significant sets, it is what situates these significant units in a space where they multiply and accumulate” (Foucault, 2015, p. 121).

For the author, a statement does not need the presence of a defined propositional structure, nor does it consider a proposition to be a statement. The statement is also not a sentence, although it can be recognized in a sentence or sentences are recognized as utterances. For Foucault (2015), this equivalence is far from being total, and it is relatively easy to quote statements that do not correspond to the linguistic structure of the sentences, since a family tree, a graph, a growth curve, an age pyramid or a sketch of breakdown, can form statements.

The statement is also not an act of speech, nor the thought or intention of the individual who is speaking, the consequences of an oath, testimony, a prayer, a contract, a testimony on TV, a letter - these are acts of speech, a kind of “visible bodies”. And each statement maintains a relationship with all these formulations; each act of language “would take shape in a statement, and each statement would be, internally, inhabited by one of these acts. They would exist for each other and in exact reciprocity” (Foucault , 2015, p. 100).

When considering the discourse in Foucault (2015, p. 60), we take it as “practices that systematically shape the objects they speak about”, which are typical of an era, produced, transmitted and received in very specific ways, which they speak of a certain time and place and produce subjects in a certain way (Fischer, 2002), because they challenge them constituting truths that are from that time. In this sense, we do not seek to find bad/good intentions in what was said or announced by advertisements, but to look for what is put and its effects on social life. We also see the Enem as a device, considering the discursive and non-discursive domains that constitute it, in a game of power relations with effects on the production of the subjects.

For analysis of advertising about Enem, we searched on YouTube⁶ the advertising campaigns related to the exam. On the MEC channel, on the Enem playlist⁷, 278 videos were found⁸ containing information about the exam and about the educational platform, produced between 2009 and 2018. We selected 15 videos with advertising about Enem aired on widely circulated TV channels. For analytical work, we also consider analysis operators used by the communication area (Rocha, Matos, Salvo, & Souto , 2010), such as the scene environment (social space/locus of social interactions); thematic (script or “written” advertising text); and graphic elements (explanatory or illustrative texts and images).

Enem as a device: a look at the discourses and practices of the National High School Exam

The way in which Enem has been reported by the media, produces effects that go beyond the walls of schools/universities and enter people's homes and the logic of consumption, when they place the exam as a “path of opportunities” (Brasil, 2014) for the achievement of a better future.

For Hall (1997b), the media supports the global circuits of economic exchange on which the entire world movement of information, knowledge, capital, investment, production of goods and marketing of products and ideas depends. In this sense, the results of the exam, when reported in the media or in advertisements and billboards of institutions that “publicize” their good performance and the place they occupy in the ranking, mark schools and the subjects who work and study in the ranked spaces.

The Enem inserted in the social reality, present in several spaces, and with effects on the constitution of the subjects, was considered as a device, since it can be seen as:

a decidedly heterogeneous set that includes speeches, institutions, architectural organizations, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral, philanthropic propositions. In short, what is said and what is not said are the elements of the device. The device is the network that can be woven between these elements

(Foucault, 2000, p. 138)⁹.

In this sense, treating Enem as a device, means considering it, from this set of elements, in a game that allows changes in position and function changes to occur. Foucault (2000) points out the device as a type of strategic formation that takes place at a certain historical moment with the function of responding to an emergency.

The saying is one of the elements of the device and, therefore, is strongly considered in the analysis of the discourse in Foucault, which, as previously said, is the analysis option that we undertake in this study. Such discourse analysis requires that we abandon the search for something that is hidden, an untouched truth that is there, about to reveal itself, or under “its apparent surface, a hidden element, a secret meaning that hides in them, or that through them appears to say it ” (Foucault, 2015, p. 133). For the author, the understanding of a discourse is associated with the explanation of the device that involves its contexts and its language codes, since the device mixes things and ideas, representations, doctrines, and even philosophies, with institutions, social, economic practices, etc.

Thus, to analyze the sayings about Enem, furthers us from the cause and consequence relations, to think that the media represents Enem “as it really is” or what the government's “intentions” would be for Enem to be recognized, or, still, which messages would be the worst or the best on the evaluation policy. In the analysis carried out, we sought the multiplicities, the disturbances, the crossings caused by Enem, as well as their effects on Brazilian education.

This search involves considering Enem in different spaces - advertisements produced by the federal government, creation and advertising on the educational platform, official documents and journalistic articles - that constitute a discursive network that gives meaning to Enem. And, thinking of it as a device makes it possible to see, for example, the way in which institutions organize to host the exam, represented and recognized as capable of providing students with access to the path of opportunities. The Enem as a path of opportunities for the future, instead of the entrance exam as a passport to be someone in life, can be taken as a recurring statement in the pedagogical, political and mediatic discourses, present in the materials we analyzed.

The representation of Enem in the media as ‘the’ path of opportunities for the future

Advertising is a tool used to present a product, aiming to address a merchandise, a service, a brand or a corporation to a given public. The consumer is the one to whom the communication should provoke some reaction and a desire to purchase the product, whether material or immaterial (Gomes, 2011). In the case of advertisements produced by the government about Enem, these are not intended to sell a product, but to "sell" an opportunity for a better future.

In the analysis of the videos with official advertisements for 2009, 2010 and 2011, it is noticed that the productions have an informative character, involving: necessary documentation, opening hours of the gates, alerts about Daylight Savings Time, and the filling of the answer card. The analysis from the analysis operators (Rocha et al. , 2010) is shown in Chart 1.

Chart 1
Data from the analysis of advertisements about Enem (2009, 2010 and 2011) from certain analysis operators

Operadores de análise	ENEM 2009	ENEM 2010	ENEM 2011
Ambiente de cena	Interno: Universidade	Interno: cenário Externo: praças	Externo: ruas de uma cidade
Temática	Informativa
Elementos gráficos	Complementam fala do ator	Sem elementos explicativos	Complementam e fazer parte da rua (placas de sinalização, outdoor, placas de restaurantes).
Sujeitos do vídeo	Wagner Moura (ator)	Gabriel o Pensador (cantor) e estudantes	Caros Castro (atriz)

In the years 2009, 2010 and 2011, videos about Enem were produced that featured the presence of artists well known to the population in general, for their presence in cinema or television. Wagner Moura¹⁰, Gabriel, O Pensador¹¹ and Carol Castro¹², respectively, starred in government advertisements.

In the first, recorded at a university, the actor related the day of the examination, the time for the closing of the gates, guidelines for completing the test, like not bringing digital devices (cellphone, calculator, digital watch, etc.) on the exam day. For all this information, graphic elements illustrated what the actor explained. In the second, recorded in public parks with the presence of young people, the singer indicated questions and answers about the time of the test and necessary documents, mentioning again¹³, Enem as a gateway to ProUni and as a way to access Universities and Federal Institutes¹⁴. In the third production, also recorded outdoors in a city, the actress presented explanations/recommendations with the same tenor as in previous years, but, illustrating her speech, graphic elements containing messages that replaced the usual street signs were used.

In 2012, three advertising pieces were produced, organized on topics with an informative character (Chart 2), but with emphasis on the role of Enem, as a selection process for entering higher education. According to a poll from online news website G1, in these first three years of the evaluation, Enem increased from 51 to 95 participating institutions, 1319 courses to 3327 courses, with over one million candidates competing for for just over 10,000 offers for University (Moreno, 2018).

Chart 2
Data from the analysis of advertisements about Enem 2012 from analysis operators

Operadores de análise	2012 [1]	2012 [2]	2012 [3]
Ambiente de cena	Interno: Lan house, casa.	Interno: Restaurantes Externo: ônibus	Interno: cinema
Temática	Fuso horário	Local de prova	Prova de língua estrangeira
Elementos gráficos	Textos informando dia e horário das provas
Sujeitos do vídeo	Dois meninos	Duas meninas	Um menino e uma menina

In the videos of the 2012 edition, advertisements for the exam made use of scenes that refer to common stories lived by teenagers, this time with younger and lesser-known characters that called attention to being mindful of the start time of the exam and about the choice of the foreign language test. In the first story, a student tells the other that he was almost late for the exam, because the time zone is different in his city. In the second, two girls talk in a restaurant and one of them says that she met a “kitty” (Brazilian slang for a boy) while waiting to go to her test location and that she got distracted and got on the wrong bus. The third presents a dialogue between a girl and a boy, at the entrance of a cinema, about the possibilities of choice in the foreign language test. The videos show young people in their own environments and experiences to mobilize interests and expectations regarding the completion of the exam, and you can see that the "discourse of advertising approaches the aspirations of consumers, through language and images" (Gomes, 2011, p. 3).

As of 2013, advertising will again feature actors and singers known to teenagers. In 2013 and 2014, the presentation of Enem as a gateway to the future is highlighted by the different forms of access to the university, and the content of the messages is no longer informative and starts to refer to Enem as “the” way to opportunities for students.

Figure 1
2013 Enem advertisement: Enem as the possibility of access to higher level education.

Throughout the video display¹⁵, singer Manu Gravassi (Figure 1) sings a song, whose lyrics say:

I'm fine, I'm Zen, I went to college with Enem. Dedicated student is carefree, have a vacancy through Sisu (Unified System). College is nice, but you don’t have the money? With the ProUni scholarships you guarantee the diploma. A+ student can count on Fies, student financing without too entangling with paperwork. I'm fine, I'm Zen, I went to college with Enem. A door that opens, another door that opens, another door that opens, other doors like that. This future is already mine too.

The doors mentioned in the jingle allude to the passage to the future, represented by the different doors and through different university access programs (Fies, ProUni, Sisu). The student goes through the door and enters another room, as if upon entering the door he was selected for such programs.

In 2014¹⁶, “the” way to the future is also mentioned in the advertising piece with the singers Mumuzinho and Mariana Nolasco, he, a young black samba player, she, a young white singer, represent the racial and gender diversity of many other young Brazilians.

The video starts with the singer, entering through a door marked “Enem”, and after the opportunities for the future, they are represented by the different university access programs (Fies, ProUni, Sisu, quotas), presented in graphic elements (Figure 2), and accompanied by the jingle sung by the singers.

Figure 2
2014 Enem advertisement with the access opportunities from the exam.

Everyone needs the opportunity to take a technical course, a college. Have a happy, quality life. The path exists, if you just have the will. You only have to want, dedicate and study, and many doors will open to you, at all stages of your school life, living and learning, learning to live.

Each door that opens is the future that is born, another door that opens is a young man who grows with MEC and Enem that future is already yours, too. With Sisu, Unified System you choose the course, with no worries. The ProUni door is open to you, a scholarship for you to grow. The Sisu TEC, is vocational education, to become a technician, how about that? Not bad. I always wanted to go to college, and with the Quota System it can come true. Knowing the world and studying hard, Science Without Borders is the future at hand. Lack of money to study and and to change your life, Fies arrived to make it easier.

Regarding the advertisements of 2013 and 2014, it is clear that the message in the lyrics of the songs points to approval at Enem, an objective and classificatory evaluation, as a guarantee of fulfillment and happiness. It is not difficult to recognize that this “guarantee” is quite subjective, considering the different aspects that may be associated with the school and training processes for the different subjects who attend school, among which are the access and permanence of young people in Basic Education, differences that start well before the exam.

These advertisements contain utterances¹⁷ who indicate that the choice to follow the “right” path for a promising future is the student's, which leads us to think about how the subjects are challenged by real speeches about there being “a” path to be followed and that walking this path only depends on the effort and dedication of the subjects. For Foucault (2000), each society has its own regime of truth, that is, the speeches it welcomes and makes function as true.

To these considerations, we bring the study by Travitzki (2013) on the ranking produced according to Enem, which points out that it “informs more about the school context, such as the socioeconomic level of the families, than about its merit in the results obtained by students in the exam” (p. 257), as the results are usually favorable to those who are already in favorable conditions, valuing inequality mechanisms. So, although the propaganda claims that there are equal conditions for participating in the exam, it is understood that these conditions change according to the socioeconomic conditions of the students and their families.

In this sense, the media becomes more than a vehicle for product distribution (Fischer, 1996), in the case of advertisements about Enem, the media works as a producer of knowledge and specialized ways of communicating and producing subjects. Fischer (2002), in an analysis of different media products, highlights that such products question the subjects in relation to the body, the ways of being, and the attitudes to be assumed.

Returning to the idea of Enem as a device, we bring Deleuze (1990), which compares the device to a ball, a multilinear set, composed of lines that go in different directions, moving away from each other and forming processes in imbalance. To untangle these lines is to traverse unknown lands. For this author, more important than identifying network elements is to understand that the device occurs in a field of struggles and imbalances, in three dimensions, one of which being subjectivity. The same author considers this line as a kind of surplus value, which, for Dalla Zen (2011, p. 21), would imply a disparity between the forms of subjectivity provided by the device and the way the subject looks at himself. Are these then the new limits of the device? Could they be fracture lines and rupture lines, since this process of looking at oneself would be a way of overcoming control and dependence on the device?

In the case of this study, we understand that it would be problematizing the Enem device , presented as being “the” path of opportunities for the future or as the result of what students learned during basic education or, still, as the thermometer that would measure the effectiveness of educational policies and the quality of Brazilian education.

Still, regarding subjectivity and its performance as lines of the device, it is important to understand that, for Foucault (2012), the subject is far from being the universal subject, and because it is considered within a historical plot, it also distances itself from the psychological subject, of subjective processes of the "mind". For Deleuze (1992), subjectivity has little to do with the subject, as it would be “before an electric or magnetic field, an individuation operating intensities (both high and low), individuated fields and not people or identities” (Deleuze, 1992, p. 116).

Returning to advertisements, also in 2015, the idea of the path to be followed appears in the official advertisement about Enem¹⁸, with the slogan “Enem as a path of opportunities ” since the production features several scene environments that show a young person getting out of bed, picking up books, leaving the house and taking several paths: streets, parks, tunnels, roads, trails, doing sports, trips and in amusement parks as outdoor scene environments, which suggests, for example, with the use of the image of a toboggan, an “easy” and “possible” path. The images (Figure 3) are accompanied by the following text:

Figure 3
2015 Enem advertisement with images of different paths.

Education is a path full of opportunities, only it can take you further... And Enem opens the door to this path, it opens the door for you to move forward. Only education makes you win the world… And most importantly, it makes the world win you… The construction of your future starts now!

Like other images and lyrics, this advertisement also seeks to get closer to young people, this time using leisure, fun and also referring to challenge and courage. The use of a slide may indicate joy and fun to be associated with the decision and determination that the exam requires. If we consider the messages of these last three advertising pieces, they represent a moment in the lives of young people that involves making decisions, making choices, opening doors, walking paths, being “zen”, being well, being happy, that is, not stopping living their youth to achieve a successful future.

As expected, advertisements are addressed to young people and make use of resources and environments to capture the subjects who will receive the message that there is a passage for personal and professional success in the future, and that this passage is represented by Enem. There is an address for young students, but also for parents/guardians and for society in general, which can see in Enem a path to be taken to achieve success.

Ellsworth (2001), when addressing modes of addressing, points out the ways to attract the viewer, placing them in a position of coherence with the message. For this, the message needs to acquire meaning, to give pleasure, to please dramatically and aesthetically, to sell itself and to sell products related to it, which in the case of government advertisements, does not have Enem as its only product, but also successful subjects manufactured by the exam.

This consideration leads us to agree with Fischer (2002) that it is necessary to broaden our understanding of how we are challenged by speeches, about how our emotions are mobilized, about the strategies for constructing meanings on TV, about the ways of producing behaviors and values, feelings and pleasures in life, so that, based on the author's contributions, we understand how the “truth” is produced that Enem should be the path taken to achieve success in the future of young people.

In a change of focus, in 2016¹⁹, the official advertising abandoned the slogan of Enem as a path to success, turning to practical information on exam sites and access for candidates with different needs, enunciative scenes showing the exam as an "inclusive” policy for all Brazilians. Inclusion as an action of Enem, is referred to by the images and the narrative presented in the advertisement (Figure 4).

Figure 4
Compliance with different disabilities for the Enem exam in 2016

Here I overcame myself once again in search of a better life

[wheelchair users arriving at the test site].

Here I will guarantee a better future for me and her

[mother arriving at the test site with a baby].

Here I felt that I can have the same opportunities as everyone

[visually impaired at the test venue].

In this production, the scene environments are the possible places where the tests will be held, to which the subjects must have access. The theme of advertising deals with the inclusion of all people to participate in the evaluation, as well as reports related to the event (date and time, documentation, etc.). As graphic elements, in addition to those that make up the production itself, check marks appear on the screen as the scene is being narrated.

The announcement that participation in Enem is possible for everyone, both due to the easy access to the exam places, as well as a way to enter University via Sisu, is now coupled with the possibility of preparing for the exam at any time and place, via the Hora do Enem teaching platform. Such messages show that Enem creates equal opportunities for all subjects, which points to the idea of ​​effort and willingness to “go well/get there”, which can be understood as an emphasis on meritocracy, since it would be enough for students to have dedication to overcome difficulties, since the possibilities would be within reach, without considering other elements that are part of the educational process.

In this sense, students who are not able to “walk the path of success” because they do not have a good classification in Enem, “suffer the ailments of meritocracy, as they are seen as making little effort, lazy, disinterested, or as poor people, victims of cultural, social and socioeconomic conditions, for which the ideal remedy is support/reinforcement and training, a lot of training” (Menegão, 2015, p. 243).

In the analyzed productions, the treatment given to the exam is that it is part of social life and that it can promote the construction of a better future for all people, regardless of race, gender, social condition or disability, as well as for people who are already away from school or who do not have access to knowledge at school, as the student's preparation for the exam could be done remotely, at any time and place. In this sense, students would be rewarded for their effort and merit, being considered as subjects who produce their own future, a good future, provided they are successful in the exam.

Due to the promotion of the idea that Enem could be available to everyone, in 2016 MEC launched the Hora do Enem Program, providing a TV program and study platform to assist in preparing for Enem. This program articulates different forms of communication, newsletter and programs shown on television (TV Escola), and radio programming being broadcast by the National Radio System, in 2018, a big revision classes program. In addition to these, also the Geekie Games Enem platform, accredited by MEC and developed by Geekie²⁰, a preparatory educational platform for Enem presented as an “adaptive platform accredited by MEC that helps millions of students in the preparation and approval of the entrance exam and Sisu” (Geekie, 2016), with this new teaching space discussed in the next section.

The Geekie Games platform as possibility of studies for Enem any time and place

Still, in the first half of the twentieth century, Walter Benjamin (1987, quoted by Souza and Gamba Jr, 2002, p. 105) anticipated that “before a contemporary even opens a book, such a dense whirlwind has fallen on his eyes, changing, colorful, conflicting letters that the chances of penetration into the archaic stillness of the book have become minimal”. At that time, perhaps, there was no idea of ​​the possibility of distance studies or books at one’s fingertips, or of classrooms on virtual platforms, as is the case with the educational platform Geekie Games Enem, as a preparatory space for Enem.

The online educational platform Geekie Games Enem, as mentioned earlier, is one of the products of Geekie, a São Paulo company that produces educational content and currently has about 12 million students using their products (Geekie, 2019). This platform has among its purposes to assist students in preparing for Enem, and can be considered as a cultural artifact of this contemporaneity that produces new ways of learning. Thus, through this artifact, students could ask questions and learn content foreseen for the exam, in different areas of knowledge, becoming protagonists of their learning, because when accessing the platform, at any time and place, they would have access to knowledge they need to know to “go well” at Enem.

This expands the school environment to a virtual space, accessible to all people, in another configuration of being a school. For Hall (1997a), we live in a soft era, in which activities that were previously possible only in person (buying, looking, spending, saving, choosing, socializing…), today, can be carried out virtually, making the times and spaces change, which, in the case of school education, also changes the ways of thinking about teaching and learning, considering the means of access to information and knowledge. For Souza and Gamba Jr. (2002, p. 105), the current world is characterized by the plurality of ways of understanding reality, requiring the emergence of new narratives in the knowledge production process. We see, then, changes in the way of producing cultural artifacts and in the way the subjects relate to these productions.

When accrediting the platform as a preparation space for Enem, MEC was responsible for publicizing it, which was built with the narration of a text that accompanies the presentation of images from different places where students could study and ask questions about content, citing the area of human sciences, mathematics, natural sciences, not to mention the area of languages, which also makes up the art for Enem (Figure 5).

Figure 5
Images from two 2016 Enem advertisements announcing the platform

As graphic elements, in addition to those inherent to the production itself, check marks appear on the screen as the narrator speaks of places where it is possible to study and also of the platform's features (video lessons, study plans and expert tips), in addition to talks about the expansion of places of access, with young people studying on sidewalks, stairs, fields etc.

In advertising, the scene environments (Rocha et al. 2010), represent a train, a slum, outdoor spaces, a beach and an indigenous tribe (the last two exemplified in Figure 5), in which students appear using electronic devices and accessing the platform, which would be accessible in these different spaces. The images were accompanied by the narration (Chart 3) in which these spaces would provide the opportunity to prepare for Enem, disregarding possible difficulties in accessing the platform such as internet connection, for example.

Chart 3
Text of advertisements about the 2016 Enem platform.

Propaganda sobre a Plataforma 2016 [1]	Aqui aprendi tudo sobre a Lei de Kepler. [em um trem]. Aqui eu tirei uma dúvida sobre tabela periódica. [em uma praia] Aqui, do meu quarto, eu fiz um simulado, que antes só dava pra fazer em um cursinho. [em uma favela] Aqui eu descobri a diferença entre mitose e meiose. [em uma tripo indígena].
Propaganda sobre a Plataforma 2016 [2]	Aqui eu aprendi tudo sobre a vegetação do Centro-Oeste. [em uma tribo indígena] Aqui eu aprendi que a área de um triângulo equilátero é a vase vezes a altura dividida por dois. [em um ônibus] Aqui eu entendi como funciona a força centrípeta. [em uma escadaria].

• Source: Adapted by the authors, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePWRkMe-8C4 e https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FdsTwQfLtw

We note that in the advertisements about the platform, there was references to concepts/content of natural sciences, such as "Kepler's laws, the periodic table, processes of cell division (mitosis and meiosis), and centripetal force" more frequently than content of other areas. The frequent mention of specific knowledge in the area of natural sciences highlights the status of being difficult to understand, but which could also be studied and learned at any time and in any environment, through the platform.

On the status of scientific disciplines, Goodson (2013, p. 121-122) uses the example of biology to show how a field becomes a specialized science and a "solid science", achieving academic status with the advancement of research in determined area, due to the utilitarian aspect of the field “for application and economic exploitation in industries”. With this, it becomes "a lab science", and the area is gaining ground in the universities, becoming a specialized field of knowledge that, in the case of sciences, started being recognized over time as being difficult to understand.

Thus the narratives about what to study for the exame show how, even divided in areas of knowledge, focuses on specific discipline content, with no indication of any interdisciplinarity or more general sciences. Thus, it is clear that students need to study the disciplinary specificities (content specific biology, physical health and chemistry), expected for a qualifying exam that has become a "national college entrance exam".

In 2017, two advertisements produced by the federal government about Enem were released, in which young people are positioned as protagonists of their future, but now without mentioning the platform. In the first, the allusion to the space that students have in the production of content on the internet is made, as well as the announcement of changes in the realization of exams, from a public consultation²¹,

Yeah, the world has changed. Now everyone is a content creator. Going live is no longer a privilege of TV. It is your privilege. You also give the news, you’re also an audience. You have a voice. And hearing you, Enem has changed. The tests will be on two Sundays. And the essay, on the first Sunday. Enem is what you make.

In this advertising piece, young people appear recording and sharing videos on their cell phones, using a common tool on social networks, known as Story²². This tool allows users to record short videos (15s) and publish in real time, for their followers, allowing, also, to live stream longer videos. In advertising, the video piece was accompanied by the announcement of the opening of applications for the Enem exam of 2017, amid short videos produced by students in activities with friends, on walks or playing sports (Figure 6).

Figure 6
2017 Enem advertisement, showing young people’s posts with Facebook tool

In the images, the graphic elements are the same as those used on social networks, in addition to symbols used as a reaction to Facebook posts, location check-in in a São Paulo park (Parque da Juventude) and a young man with a helmet indicating that he would do some sport in the park. Another highlight of this production is in relation to racial diversity, since black youth occupies a prominent place in the advertising, which, until then, was not common in official productions.

The second advertisement, already in the period of the exams, follows the movement that had been started in previous years, with the message that students can prepare to “go well” in the exam anywhere, in parks and restaurants, highlighting the absence of school and classrooms for the preparation of students for Enem (Figure 7).

Figure 7
Scenes of 2017 Enem advertisement – Exams phase

In the video, the images were accompanied by sound, with students singing a jingle that refers to the preparation for the exam:

Here comes the Enem exam, get smart and prepare well, check information on the registration card, arrive before closing the gate. Enem exam, Enem exam, whoever prepares will do well. The second day of the Enem test will be on this Sunday, November 12th. Take a transparent black ballpoint pen.

The images of the 2017 advertisement consider the ways of identifying young people who speak out, give their opinion and are heard, as is the motto of the advertising campaign that refers to the changes in Enem. But, also, the identification of young people with places and spaces for learning and studies, other than school, that is, the study and preparation for the evaluation could count on other possible spaces to learn different contents for the exam. We emphasize that in the two advertisements of 2017, racial diversity is highlighted, with young actors/models who are black, white, red-haired and a young woman with oriental traits.

Meyer (2001) considers that social representation systems build places in which individuals or groups position themselves, or are positioned, from which they can speak, or be spoken, in the midst of power relationships that define who is or is not, included. Hence, perhaps, the increasing representation of ethnic-racial diversity in advertisements, as a way to include everyone in this search for a successful future.

In the 2018 production, there is an explicit return of the slogan “Whoever prepares will do well”, accompanied by the same jingle of 2017, with the difference that the 2018 production does not take place in a public space with young people studying, but returns to a school environment, with young people lined up in front of desks, reminiscent of a classroom (Figure 8).

Figure 8
2018 Enem advertisement

In the piece, the actors perform a musical that has the participation of a character that sings and dances with the students, referring to the figure of the teacher (Figure 9), who seems to return to the “scene”, along with the school, probably alluring that teachers must also “dance to the tune of Enem”. Graphic elements with reminders for the test are part of the advertising piece.

Figure 9
Scenes of 2018 Enem advertisement.

The presence of the teacher in these media pieces about the Enem reinforces the political, educational and mediatic discourse, among others, which, in a way, promote self accountability of students (and their teachers) for school success and, consequently, a successful future. When analyzing the Pisa²³_assessment, Popkewitz (2011, p. 171) questions how this assessment produces facts or “tells the truth” about the quality of education and the level of students who participate in it, in a process that fabricates successful or failed individuals. For this author, there should be no concern with the internal validity or reliability of the test items, but with the conditions that make the style of thought enshrined in Pisa possible, which is not only related to educational issues, but also involves economic and social issues. Furthermore, it considers the rankings and the numbers that produce them a problem, as they become “social facts inscribed as cultural practices that manufacture the types of people” (Popkewitz, 2011, p. 170) associated with failure or success.

Final considerations

In this paper, we analyzed speeches and representations in media that give visibility and legitimacy to Enem as a policy of evaluation and access to higher education for young Brazilians. The option of seeing the Enem exam as an educational device, allowed us to recognize in different discourses - the governmental political, the pedagogical and the mediatic, among others, when being positioned as a marker to meet the classificatory character of the evaluation, the way teaching institutions and subjects are also classified as being successful or failures.

The research shows that the focus of the advertising pieces is on the relationship of students with technologies and with social networks, since the scenes contain photos and videos during moments of study, leisure, or both. Thus, in official advertising, we can see the exam linked to the students' routines, showing that the preparation for Enem can be related to leisure activities, showing that, in addition to being able to study anywhere, it is also possible to make this an activity pleasant when shared with other young people.

In the productions about Enem, students are interchanged with different speeches that consider a good score and being approved to University through Enem as a path of opportunities for the future, which would be available to everyone, whose success would only depend on the effort of each one, regardless of wherever they are, the time they have available for studies, school training or different needs, this being a recurring statement that reinforces the emphasis on competitiveness and individual accountability for a successful future.

As a result, we believe that representations of Enem need to be problematized in order to understand that their results can provide important information, but that they are not absolute; therefore, they must be combined with other elements that impact the expected results for the improvement of educational processes.

• 2
  Standardization, preparation and textual revision: Luan Maitan – [e-mail]
• 3
  English version: Natália Corrêa e Silva - [e-mail]
• 4
  Funding: Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel
• 5
  Changes in purpose refer to the use made of Enem, considering its initial purpose of monitoring student performance.
• 6
  YouTube is a video repository site on the internet. The channels on this site are pages where users share their videos.
• 7
  Playlist is the division of the channel by themes.
• 8
  Number of videos updated on Sep. 19, 2019.
• 9
  Castro (2009), highlights that the concept of device arises from the need for Foucault to relate in his analyzes discursive and non-discursive elements, initially when dealing with sexuality (sexuality device).
• 10
  Television and cinema actor in films Tropa de Elite 1 (2007) and Tropa de Elite 2: O Inimigo Agora é Outro (2010), with great national repercussion, especially among young people.
• 11
  Composer, writer and rapper, with songs that approach issues relevant to young people.
• 12
  Brazilian actress acting in several productions both in soap operas and in Brazilian cinema.
• 13
  In addition to this, analyzed in 2009, in a second advertising piece also starring Wagner Moura ProUni was mentioned for the first time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Q2F7U82ac
• 14
  Although, since its creation it has been used as a sorting mechanism of students and institutions through averages published by INEP, it was only from 2004 on that the results of the exam started to rank students for ProUni and, starting in 2009, for Sisu. With the end of Enem por Escolas, announced in 2017, the evaluation ceased to be used for the certification of high school students, starting to be used as a classification only for post-secondary and higher education courses.
• 15
  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnLcUpHGiaY
• 16
  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTSkJHvCJ7g
• 17
  While the enunciation has a situated, dated singularity, it can be “restarted or recalled, while a form (linguistic or logical) can be updated” (Foucault, 2015, p. 128), the statement has the particularity of being able to be repeated: but always under strict conditions. Therefore, while utterances are many, utterances are considered rare.
• 18
  Advertisement “2015 Enem”. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH7DpjiwF9w&list=PL9nJ11ynWg3fYxpcUYDXEgn1J7szGZV6H&index=62
• 19
  Advertisement “Enem 2016 - Exams Phase”. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC8r9rQ_BzM
• 20
  Company created in 2011 by two administrators who “abandoned the stability of their careers in the financial market and started to contribute to the transformation that education needs so much that they thought about how to connect the school with the needs of the students of their time” (Geekie, 2019). Currently the startup consists of 150 employees between educators and technology experts and other skills, who have been part of the Ministry of Education, Secretaries of Education, are teachers in the best schools in Brazil, as well as engineers, designers and other professionals who could be at Microsoft, Google, Facebook, but choose to be at Geekie for improving education (Geekie, 2019).
• 21
  In January 2017, there was a public consultation, by the Ministry of Education, for Brazilian society to give its opinion on: the number of days for the exam to be applied, the days of the exam and the use of a computer for the exam. In addition, the population was asked to make suggestions for improving the exam in a text with a maximum of 300 characters.
• 22
  In 2013, Facebook tried to buy the social network Snapchat (pioneer in the tool that allows to transmit short videos), without success. Then the Stories tool was incorporated into other social networks like Facebook and Instagram. In all of these, the user adds photos and videos to the account for their followers to see, which remains available for 24 hours, and then disappears.
• 23
  The Programme for International Student Assessment, created in 2000, aims to compare the performance of students from 65 countries. It is applied every three years, covering three areas of knowledge: Portuguese, mathematics and science.

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1

Responsible Editor: André Luiz Paulilo. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8112-8070

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  28 May 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  14 Nov 2019
• Reviewed
  03 Apr 2020
• Accepted
  26 May 2020