Latin American media reception studies: notes on the meaning of gender and research methodologies

Abstract

The author explores a comparative analysis of key methodological approaches and theoretical debates between, on the one hand, Latin American and Brazilian reception analysis, and, on the other hand, the same branch in the anglophone academy. This kind of investigation is related to the general rise of cultural studies in Latin America from the mid-1980s on. Reception studies give special attention to female audiences, especially middle-age women from lower classes. Methodologically, this empirical research, adopting qualitative methods, has sought to concentrate on the accounts of the spectator herself, commonly using in-depth interviews and sometimes including participant observation. The author sustains that, although reception research concentrates its focus on women’s experience as a whole, it avoids the specificity of women’s issues. The conclusion stands that, in contrast with cultural studies elsewhere, the encounter of feminism with reception analysis within Latin America, specially in Brazil, hasn’t happened yet.