Apresentação

Abstract

In the present edition of Significação – Scientific Journal for Audiovisual Culture and in the others to follow something new is brought: the presence of thematic dossiers which are to be organized by invited scholars. The appointed subject for the very first one of them was Radio and the invited scholar, Eduardo Vicente, professor at the Graduate Course in Audiovisual and at the Postgraduate Program in Audiovisual Media and Processes of the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo (ECA-USP). Entitled Radio Beyond Borders the dossier gathers six articles and the intention of reuniting works on the perspectives of usage of such media as much as on the new possibilities of aesthetical experimenting being build up for it, especially considering the new digital technologies and technological convergences. It also intends to present works with original theoretical approach and original reflections able to reset the way we look at what is today already a centennial media. Having broadened the meaning of “beyond borders”, four foreign authors were invited to join the dossier. This is the first time they are being published in this country and so, in all cases, the articles where either written or translated into Portuguese.The dossier begins with “Radio is dead…Long live to the sound”, which is the transcription of a thought provoking lecture given by Armand Balsebre (Autonomous University of Barcelona) – one of the most influential authors in the world on the Radio study field. It addresses the challenges such media is to face so that it can become “a new sound media, in the context of a new soundscape or sound-sphere, for the new listeners”. Andrew Dubber (Birmingham City University) regarding the challenges posed by a Digital Era argues for a theoretical approach in radio studies which can consider a Media Ecology. The author understands the form and discourse of radio as a negotiation of affordances and effectivities more than a number of fixed essential characteristics. Luiz Artur Ferrareto (UFRGS), undertaking a theoretical proposal for categorizing radio content in four different levels of planning (segment, form, programming and content itself) tries to “compare and contrast the practices of Brazilian commercial broadcasting companies to those used on the radio in the United States, a reference market for our national entrepreneurs”. Madalena Oliveira (University of Minho) focuses on the current stage of communication researches in Portugal reflecting on the challenges for studying a culture based on listening in times of looking. Marko Ala-Fossi, (University of Tampere) beginning with the statement that “radio evolution greatly depends not only on the cultural context of a country but also on the whole social, political, economic development of societies” gives us a projection on radio development around the world for the next decades. Closing the dossier, Rafael Duarte Oliveira Venancio (UFU) assuming radio as language by definition and not as a device understands it as a section and an operating model in such language as it intersects the world. Another six articles, not enrolled in the dossier, round the edition off. Fernando de Tacca debates the category of “photocine” recurring to three recent Spanish productions. Gustavo Souza investigates the possibility of identifying a point of view in documentary movies while establishing a debate that joins the materialities of image and sound with the subjectivity resulting from interpretation. Vinicius Bandeira develops on the special duplicity present in the movies between what is and what is not subsumed by the camera. Neide Jallageas proposes the study of visual communication design from the first modelings, attempting especially to the radical propositions from the early XXth century avant-garde movement. Gilson Schwartz debates on the impact from the distribution of videogames as hegemonic cultural practice in the society of spectacle, Christian Pelegrini and Rogério de Almeida analyze the forms of representation of Rose Nadler’s character in the north-American television series Lost. The editors would like to thank the authors for the availability and trust placed in us as well as all as thank the professionals involved in the production of this Journal for the work put into it – especially Andrea Limberto, translator for the articles of Marko Ala Fossi e Andrew Dubber, and Eduardo Vicente, organizer of the dossier and translator for the article of Armand Balsebre. Enjoy the reading!The Editors