Although the Brazilian mediascape has been in transition since the early 1990s, the passage of the Pay-TV Law (Law 12.485) in 2011 established a new era. The Pay-TV Law has led to the rise of new distributors and production companies, a proliferation of viewing options, and a diversification of narrative formats. This increasingly competitive era has accelerated the fragmentation of TV Globo’s hegemony over the symbolic constructions of Brazil as an imagined community. In addition, this fragmentation has led to more diverse depictions of the country and its people, moving beyond the racially and geographically limited representations of TV Globo’s telenovelas, and thereby expanding the broader social imaginary. The series 3%, from a 2011 YouTube web pilot to its 2016 release as Netflix’s first original Brazilian series, is one prime example of production occurring beyond TV Globo’s reach, the ongoing transformation to the field, and the broadening depiction of how Brazil is imagined that began with the passage of the Pay-TV Law in 2011.

This chapter explores the expansion of Internet access in Brazil since 2011 and analyzes three critically acclaimed web series: Septo (Septum, YouTube), Marcos: Uma websérie quase original (Marcos: An Almost Original Web series, Instagram and YouTube), and 3% (YouTube and Netflix). The former two were made exclusively for Internet distribution and are the products of recently formed production companies in cities far from the Rio–São Paulo axis of production: Natal and Caxias do Sul. While they differ in genre, tone, length, and themes, both Septo and Marcos stand out for representing regions of Brazil not often portrayed on the small screen during the period leading up to 2011. For its part, 3% eschews regional and national differences, focusing instead on a post-apocalyptic world. Unlike Septo and Marcos, both of which emerged within the context of the new Brazilian mediascape, the production of 3% spans the pre- and post-2011 mediascapes.