Cacique covers: meaning effects of childhood, playing and game in a children's magazine (1950s)

Abstract:

The article analyzes the covers of a Brazilian magazine published in the 1950s. Among 43 Cacique covers signed by the same artist, 18 were selected for analysis. Discursive semiotics is the theoretical-methodological basis, associated with arguments from the sociology of childhood, the technique of illustration and the history of print. It is questioned how the themes child, to play and playing reveal meaning effects and discourses related to the historical context of the publication. The analysis demonstrates that the covers reveal a restricted childhood, with little space for a childhood culture, to play and act creatively. The importance of printed material is reiterated both from the perspective of the immanence of meanings in the object and from the perspective of (re)constructed historical, social and cultural meaning effects.

Keywords:
childhood cultures; image; print; semiotics