Recepção: a abordagem dos Estudos Culturais

Abstract

The article deals with the Theory of Reception, or, as the author prefers, with the Audience’s Interpretation of the media, that aims at understanding the communicative processes, the interrelationship emitters/ receptors and the receptor’s construction of meaning. The author covers four tendencies. The first of them is presented in this article and discusses the tradition of Cultural Studies and the contributions authors such as Raymond Williams e Stuart Hall, of the Center for Contemporaneous Culture, de Birmingham, England, have given to the consolidation of this theoretical line of thought. It has as its basic assumption that the mass communication are not mere means to transport information, but, instead, reveal cultural meanings created in a certain historical period. The other tendencies – Symbolic Interactionism, Cultural Consensus Study Tradition and the Logic of Production and Consumption – will be presented in the next edition.