Despite its promised richness, researching past reception has received less attention from scholars than other aspects of media history, such as the retrospective study of media genres, organizations and technologies. This volume aims to contribute to a better knowledge of this neglected field, both by reflecting about theoretical questions and by presenting empirical data.
Transformations that occurred throughout the 20th century have to be understood within a history of permanent social re-contextualisation of the media in the changing scenarios of everyday life, where gendered questions make up an important part. The history of media uses and representations also requires scholars to face complex questions about memory, as a mediator in research about the past, but also as an object of study on its own. Memory is a crucial topic, as it calls attention to the processes of meaning-making in which audiences engage through successive acts of re-appropriation of media texts
