Anthropology and communication - a new reaserch field and the researches produced so far

Abstract

The present work discusses the contributions of anthropology for the study and research on the mass media. Social sciences in general and anthropology in particular have been thinking sistematically on the mass media in recent years. Over the last decades this has not been a primary theme of studies in master and phd thesis in the post-graduation programs in social anthropology in Brazil. In a brief research on academic institutions in the main cities, we noted that the media and specially the press appeared in researches as a complementary element. The focus of the present work is, therefore, to analyse some of these thesis. We managed to divide them in four main thematic issues: newsmaking; the discourse of the journalists about their career and about the mass media; researches on publicity in general and publicitarians and studies on television and the reception etnographies that reflected on the interpretations of the audience of midia programs on television.