Brazilian Communication journals register research on radio broadcasting (2002-2012)

Abstract

The article provides an overview of the texts about radio broadcasting published in Brazilian journals in the Communication area classified as Qualis A2 and B1 by CAPES – Coordination of the Higher Education Personnel Training – and checks the predominant content, the main authors and bibliographic references commonly used. It was intended to thus have a more accurate view of the space occupied by the radio broadcasting in the area of the scientific publications. In order to collect the texts for the composition of the corpus for the analysis, search results including tittle, summary and keywords indicating a connection with the theme “radiobroadcasting” were selected. It was found that these journals have an important role in the historical research about radio and reveal a critical look of the researchers on the radio broadcasting theme and its relationship with society.

Keywords
Radiobroadcasting; Communication journals; Research; Scientific production

Resumo

O artigo traça um panorama dos textos sobre o rádio publicados em revistas brasileiras da área da Comunicação classificadas como Qualis A2 e B1 pela CAPES (Coordenadoria de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), e verifica os conteúdos preponderantes, os principais autores e as referências bibliográficas mais utilizadas. Pretendeu-se, assim, ter uma visão mais precisa do espaço ocupado pelo rádio nas publicações científicas da área. Para a composição do corpus, foram selecionados aqueles em que o título, o resumo e as palavras-chave indicassem a vinculação com o tema “rádio”. Verificou-se que esses periódicos têm um papel relevante no registro histórico da pesquisa sobre o rádio e que revelam um olhar crítico dos pesquisadores sobre a temática radiofônica e a sua relação com a sociedade.

Palavras chave
Rádio; Revistas de Comunicação; Pesquisa; Produção científica

Resumen

El artículo proporciona una visión general de los textos sobre la radio publicados en revistas del área de Comunicación de Brasil clasificadas como Qualis A2 y B1 por la CAPES – Coordinación de Formación de Personal de Educación Superior – y comprueba el contenido predominante, los principales autores y las referencias bibliográficas más utilizadas. Se pretende así tener una visión más precisa del espacio ocupado por la radio en las publicaciones científicas. Para la elección de los textos, fueron seleccionados aquellos en que el título, el resumen y las palabras clave indicaran el vínculo con la temática de la radio. Se encontró que las publicaciones tienen papel relevante y que revelan una mirada crítica de los investigadores en el tema de la radio y su relación con la sociedad.

Palabras clave
Radio; Revistas de Comunicación; Investigación; Producción científica

Introduction

Scientific journals in the Communication field are developed in privileged spaces, a place where the flow of research production come together.¹. Therefore, they represent a qualified place for other authors and general readers interested in the theme to search for references. These journals, thus, “are a source of actualization of knowledge and a privileged medium of information about the ongoing researches, producing a list of publications that function as a reference for most academic instances” (BOUZON; OLIVEIRA, 2015, p.131 – our translation). To the authors,

Qualified journals acquire the power to define norms and ways for each subject, according to their references and theoretical and methodological alignment, their worldview, their limits, their paradigms, their themes, their methods. These factors lead to acceptance or rejection of papers, determining the research’s value and establishing – through the publication agreement – which ones are worthy of interest or not. Thus, a perception of each discipline is created, which can be imposed as dominant, because it becomes prescriptive, since it directs and channels the developments in the field (BOUZON; OLIVEIRA, 2015, p.131-132 – our translation).

On the other hand, as Izquierdo (1996, p.2 – apudCAPPARELLI; STUMPF, 1997, p.275 – our translation) outlines “the visible product, concrete result of scientific activity is the so-called scientific work: the detailed text, describing the insertion of the finding or findings in the context of the international bibliography, the methods employed, the results and discussion, and pertinent conclusion, if any”.

In that sense, this paper outlines the landscape of scientific works related to radiobroadcasting published in Brazilian Communication journals in the period of 2002-2012. In total, 152 texts were identified, of which 143 are papers, 7 are reviews, and two are interviews, from 28 different journals. Seven of those journals are ranked as Qualis A2 by CAPES – Coordination of the Higher Education Personnel Training, and 28 as B1², and among the A2, all of them have texts addressing radiobroadcasting in the period analyzed. The journals were selected for being a reference in the Communication field, with a better ranking score by the Qualis Periódicos (Qualis Periodicals) assessment system by CAPES. The categories were selected based on recurrent references, as they were identified in the texts, and according to key-words indicated by the authors³.

Previous study and state of the art

This paper is part of a wider ongoing research developed by the author⁴ which continues a previous one, entitled A produção científica sobre o rádio no Brasil: livros, artigos, teses e dissertações (1991-2001) – The scientific production about radio in Brazil: books, papers, thesis and dissertations –, completed in 2003, in which a broad inventory of the production in that period was collected. Quantitative data about the theme, predominance of subjects, and insertion in the Communication field were the results achieved (HAUSSEN, 2004).

The review carried out by the study indicated, at that time, the existence of an inventory of works published until 1990, performed by the scholar Sonia Virginia Moreira, which resulted in the book O Rádio no Brasil – The radio in Brazil – (1991; 2001, 2ª ed.). The same author, together with Nélia Del Bianco, also published a paper entitled A pesquisa sobre o rádio no Brasil nos anos oitenta e noventa – Research about radio in Brazil in the 80s and 90s – (LOPES, 1999) in which they identified 21 titles about the vehicle (1990-1998). An initial data survey about the production of the Intercom’s Radio and Audio Media Research Group was performed by Del Bianco and Zuculoto (1996) and presented in CD format with the title Memória do GT Rádio da Intercom: seis anos de pesquisa em defesa do rádio (1991-1996) – Memory of Intercom’s Radio WT: six years of research in defense of the radio. Updating the data, we verify that in 2005, Sonia Virginia Moreira published Pesquisa de rádio no Brasil: a contribuição da Intercom (1997-2004) – Radio Research in Brazil: Intercom’s contribution (1997-2004) – and in 2008, the paper Rádio – Radio–, in which she makes a detailed survey of the bibliographical publication on the subject. In the latter, the author mentions “125 texts, mostly books, but also chapters and papers in scientific journals” (MELO, 2008, p.129 – Our translation). In the same year, KLÖCKNER (2008) presented a data survey about thesis and dissertations produced by authors from Rio Grande do Sul, in the 6^th National Encounter of the Alcar Network, held in the Universidade Federal Fluminense. In addition, Luiz Artur Ferraretto published, in 2010, a text about radio and digital convergence in which the production is also mentioned. Similarly, Prata, Campello, Moura, Fialho (2011) analyzed studies about radio in undergraduate level institutions of Belo Horizonte.

At Intercom’s Congress in 2011, Sonia presented a lecture in the working group Radio and Audio Media where she updated, up to 2010, the quantitative data regarding thesis and dissertations, verifying that 123 were presented in the Brazilian Post-Graduate Programs in Communication, among those 30 thesis and 93 dissertations (in the period of 1991-2001 the number was 106, of which 90 were dissertations and 16 were thesis). We observe then, that adding to the previous period, between 1991 and 2010, 229 thesis and dissertations addressing radio were produced in the Brazilian Post-Graduate Programs in Communication (HAUSSEN, 2011). Regarding more recent studies, we can mention the one by Lopez; Mustafá (2012), about doctorate thesis produced on the PGP, and the one by Prata; Mustafá; Pessoa (2014), which addresses the radio researchers in Brazil.

When analyzing the production, we can notice that the members of the Radio and Audio Media Research Group of INTERCOM have been concerned with updating their own production constantly, which constitutes an important memory and repertoire to the development of future researches about the vehicle.

Contents, authors, references

The periodicals analyzed for the study (and used in this paper) and the number of works published in the period of 2002-2012 are the following:

Table 1
Number of papers, reviews, and interviews in A2 journals

Qualis A2: 7 journals; 28 works (26 papers; 1 review; 1 interview)
Journal	Papers	Reviews	Interviews	Total
Revista Famecos	8	1	0	9
Revista INTERCOM	7	0	1	8
E-Compós	3	0	0	3
Matrizes	3	0	0	3
Galáxia	2	0	0	2
Estudos Avançados	2	0	0	2
Lua Nova	1	0	0	1
Total				28

Table 2
Number of papers, reviews, and interviews in B1 journals

Qualis Bl: 21 periódicos; 124 trabalhos (117 artigos; 6 Resenhas; 1 entrevista)
Journal	Papers	Reviews	Interviews	Total
Conexão	20	0	0	20
Eptic	15	4	1	20
Estudos em Jornalismo e Mídia	16	0	0	16
Comunicação e Sociedade	8	1	0	9
Logos	8	0	0	8
Libero	6	0	0	6
Comunicação e Inovação	5	0	0	5
Lumina	5	0	0	5
Ciberlegenda	4	0	0	4
ECCOM - Educação, Cultura e Comunicação	4	0	0	4
Eco-Pós	4	0	0	4
Intexto	4	0	0	4
Contracampo	3	0	0	3
Fronteiras	3	0	0	3
Rumores	3	0	0	3
Brazilian Journalism Research	2	0	0	2
Comunicação midiática	1	1	0	2
Comunicação, mídia e consumo	2	0	0	2
Em Questão	2	0	0	2
Animus	1	0	0	1
Sessões do Imaginário	1	0	0	1
Total				124

Regarding the texts’ content, considering all the periodicals A2 and B1 we observed that, in the period of 2002-2012, the themes involving community radio were predominant, with 23 texts, next was radio technologies, with 19, followed by journalism (15), then public policies/legislation (13), and finally reception/mediation studies (11), besides others, less referenced themes.

Table 3
Themes more present in Qualis periodicals

Main themes	Total
Community Radios	23
Radio Technologies	19
Journalism	15
Public Policies/Legislation	13
Reception/Mediation	11

Among the 28 works in A2 periodicals, 13 topics were observed, from which the Reception/Mediation theme appears on the top, with 5 texts, followed by community radios, and education and music, with 3 each. Next there are research, theory, and politics, with 2 texts each, besides others less present.

Regarding the 21 Qualis B1 journals, we observed the occurrence of 20 themes, with predominance of themes related to community radios (20 papers), radio technologies (19), journalism (15) and, next, addressing public policies/legislation (12), research (9), and reception/mediation (8 papers), among others.

By drawing a comparison among the productions from 1991 to 2001 it is possible to notice that a shift in interests took place, concerning the content in the material. At that time, the most attractive theme was radio history, followed by politics. In the next ten years (2002-2012), the predominant focus of studies was on community radios and communication technologies. The latter did not attract a lot of the researchers’ interest, which indicates an important change towards the technological topic in the last few years. On the other hand, community radio was a theme already present back then, even though not as strongly as in the latest publications. The content about journalism has a mild balance compared to the previous one, and the reception/mediations theme also had an important development. It is noteworthy, therefore, the decline of the researchers’ interest on themes related to history and politics, predominant in the previous period.

Concerning history themes, we can see that the 90s brought an expansion in the Post-Graduate Programs in Communication throughout the country, as well as the creation of the Intercom’s Radio Research Group, which certainly encouraged that kind of research. Until then, the publications touching on that theme were mostly broadcasters telling their stories, besides minor works resulting from actual research. The concern about recuperating the radio memory was an important motivation for that production. Concerning the interest for radio technology issues, it is convenient to remember what Berger and Machado (2013, p.254 – our translation) stated:

“it is technology, with its production and consumerism possibilities, and repercussion on the social life organization that has been provoking new questions and new ways of doing research, as well as a reflection about the fundamental theories that shaped us, now, against the new scenario”.

As far as the modifications pointed in the radio researches go, Haye (2003, p.227 – our translation) reminds us that they “are closely linked to hegemonic perspectives from which communication acquired a scientific interest and, also, based on constraints usually imposed by sociopolitical contexts in which the studies are developed”. In any case, what really stands out, according to the author, is that

The radio remains an experience that enables different analysis about the participation of different genres in its programming, the reasons sustaining the credibility of a station (or of hearing, or of a communicator in particular), the uses listeners can derive from radio communication offerings, the current ability of the vehicle to intervene in the construction of the themes for its audience, etc. (...) the radio offers stimulating research possibilities, especially in a time such as now, in which there are so many intense modifications in the mass-media and communicative geography in general (HAYE, 2003, p.228 229 – our translation)⁵.

Concerning the authors who published the most in A2 and B1 Communication periodicals between 2002 and 2010 we find: Marcelo Kischinhevsky (9 papers), Debora Lopez (7), Luiz Artur Ferraretto (6), Doris Haussen and Clóvis Reis (5), Nélia Del Bianco and Otavio Pierante (4). The ones that published three papers are: Cicília Peruzzo, Eduardo Meditsch, Nair Prata, Cida Golin, Leandro Comassetto and Silvia Nogueira, besides others with one or two published papers. It can be seen, then, a significant presence of authors from the INTERCOM Radio and Audio Media Research Group, pointing to the relevance of this group in contributing to studies on the theme.

Regarding the bibliographic references, it is important to mention the observation by Martino (2014) when he states that “the assessment of the discourse location based on the quotations of other authors allows the creation of an index derived from the materiality of such discourse in the writing of these texts”. But he also points out the necessary care that must be taken in regards to the number of times an author is quoted, which “cannot be taken as a portrayal of its appropriation, since the measure is not horizontal, that is, by the number of times an author is cited, and an author might have several works cited in just one paper” (MARTINO, 2014, p.163 – our translation). Highlighting Ferrara (2013), the author (2014, p.163 – Our translation) reminds us that conceptual mentions exclusively examined when appearing in the references “may indicate “traces” referring, simultaneously, to the present observed, as well as to questions posed to the same object in the past”.

Table 4
Papers per author

Most published authors	Number of papers
Kischinhevsky	9
Lopez	7
Ferraretto	6
Haussen; Reis	5
Bianco; Pierante	4
Peruzzo; Meditsch; Prata; Golin;	3
Comassetto; Nogueira

In this sense, the authors with more than ten references in the analyzed texts were Eduardo Meditsch (38 references), Arthur Ferraretto (28), Sonia Virginia Moreira (25), Cebrián Herreros (24), Gisela Ortriwano (22), Cicilia Peruzzo (19), Nelia Bianco (20), Barbosa Filho (18), Marques de Melo (16), Kischinhevsky (15), Balsebre, Martin-Barbero and Garcia Canclíni (13), Haussen and Levy (12), Herschmann (11), and Prata, Martínez-Costa, Brecht, Castells, Thompson e Ortiz (10), besides many others with less references.

Table 5
Most referenced authors

Authors	References
Meditsch	38
Ferraretto	28
Moreira	25
Cebrián Herreros	24
Ortriwano	22
Peruzzo	19
Bianco	20
Barbosa Filho	18
Marques de Melo	16
Kischinhevsky	15
Balsebre; Barbero; Canclini	13
Haussen; Levy	12
Herschmann	11
Prata; Martinez-Costa; Castells, Ortiz; Thompson	10

In the analysis carried out by Martino (2014) on the subject of texts presented at the Epistemology of Communication Working Group of the Compós – the National Association of Graduate Programs in Communication – it was discovered “a plurality of origin of the appropriated discourses in the epistemological discussion of Communication”, and that the references used were, in most instances, from other fields, raising the question “to what extent the work developed is actually communicational?” (MARTINO, 2014, p.164 – our translation). On the specific question regarding the references used in papers about radio published in Communication periodicals, we detect a strong adherence to the area, as can be noted by the most frequently cited authors. Another observation refers to authors from more comprehensive areas present in the references, in which culture authors, such as Martin Barbero, Garcia Canclíni, Renato Ortiz and John Thompson, technology authors, such as Pierre Levy and Manuel Castells, and Journalism authors, represented by Marques de Melo and Meditsch, predominate. It can be said, then, that studies about radio prioritize, in their theoretical basis, mainly questions of culture, technology and journalism, in a wide way, besides the specific subjects, as discussed previously. However, it is always advisable to pay attention to the changing context, as Martino (2014, p.173 – our translation) highlights:

The specific issues of theories and concepts discussions, as well as subject and case studies, remind us that epistemological issues do not happen outside of history, of a context of societal transformations in an specific political and economic system, that when confronted by new situations, opens new horizons for human social practices, such as Communication. As new objects of thought appear, demanding theories and concepts that enable its understanding, a search for theoretical grounds, limits and possibilities for these references also appears.

Final considerations

Therefore, the landscape of intellectual production about radio in Brazilian Communication periodicals points towards an approach reflecting the interests of society itself, within the period analyzed, as well as those of the researcher’s gaze. By looking at the most studied subjects, we can find a shift in the researchers’ interest in this period, which reveals an evolution in the wider context. One of these themes, the one related to technologies, for example, with its marked presence, also indicates, according to Sevcenko (2001 –apudBERGER; MACHADO, 2013, p.257 – our translation), that “the critic, therefore, is the cultural counterpart in the face of technique, it is the model from which the society can dialogue with innovations, contemplating its impact, assessing its effects and exploring its results”.

In a certain way, this is the discovery revealed in the texts about radio in these periodicals: a critical look on communication issues related to the wide range of radio and its implications, plus an effort by the researchers to register the landmarks of this journey. In addition, these periodicals also represent a memory location for the scientific production involving this communication vehicle, so representative of the 20^th century, and that is now expanding to other technological platforms, offering a wide landscape of what is significant to society.

• 1
  This text was reviewed for the journal and will be presented, with changes, in the XIII Congress of ALAIC – Associação Latino-Americana de Investigadores da Comunicaçõo (Latin-American Association of Communication Investigators), in the City of Mexico, in October 2016.
• 2
  CAPES defines as Qualis A2 the journals of institutions that have stricto sensu Post-Graduate Programs, or of national or international wide Scientific Society acknowledged by the area, or with CAPES, CNPq or state financial support; updated publication, present in databases such as: LATINDEX, REDALYC and DOAJ, CMMC, LAPTOC, SCIELO, SCOPUS or similar. The periodical must publish at least 40% of papers, per issue, with foreign authors or co-authors. For B1, the publications must have at least 10% of papers with foreign authors or co-authors and at least 70% of PhD authors, among other demands.
• 3
  In collaboration with the journalism student and scholarship holder by CNPq/PUCRS, Niágara Reinaldo Braga. Email: [e-mail]
• 4
  The current reseach is called “A pesquisa sobre rádio no Brasil: artigos, teses e dissertações. Conteúdos e metodologias” (Research about radio in Brazil: papers, thesis and dissertations. Contents and Methodologies) and is developed with PQ/CNPq scholarship. Its partial results are being presented, in parts, in events of the field such as the one by Rede Alcar 2015 and the XIII International Seminar of Communication (2015) by the PGP in Social Communication of PUCRS.
• 5
  Translation from Spanish by the author, followed by translation to English.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Dec 2016

History

• Received
  10 Feb 2016
• Accepted
  17 Sept 2016