The communicational line of thought and critical investigation
articulated by Armand and Michèle Mattelart is one of the main criteria for
strategical production of knowledge in the field – in Latin America and
worldwide. This line of thought has been distinguished by its transdisciplinary
strength to formulate theoretical resource/issues/subject and by its
consistency and methodological openness to combine research strategies and
procedures, which conjoin to elucidate a set of significant problems to the area
of communication science.
In an epistemological dimension, Mattelart line has been a referential
framework to considerations and systematic and deep critiques on the
methodological and theoretical models, hegemonic in the area (positivism,
functionalism, formalism, instrumentalism, technicism). In this sense, their
argumentation on behalf of Latin American critical thought, which they
recognize due to its philosophical, political, ethical and aesthetical fortune,
has contributed to strategically questioning the Euro-American logocentrism. In this perspective, their epistemological work has been vital to
problematize left-wing logics, assumptions, scholastic cultures, and political
– communicational behaviors. With this in mind, their analysis of Allende and
Mitterrand’s govern administrations, and of the “politics” of left-wing
governments in Latin America and worldwide, are paradigmatic. Their criticism
on politically correct culturalism, which has substantially restricted thoughts
on culture communication since the 1980s, is also enlightening.
The Mattelarts have been working in the theoretical dimension with such
singular dedication, and this is how their research offers valuable
systematizations to interpret, understand, know and problematize the various
trends, schools, models, proposals and arguments of relevance in the work of
theoretical training of universities and academic communities from Europe, USA
and Latin America.
In the methodological aspect, the Mattelart line of thought, during
their six decades of work in the area, explored, formed, sampled, and produced
fruitful and consistent critical investigational combinations. Their research
on transnational systems of hegemonic power; liberal press coverage in
Allende’s Chile; Latin America’s mainstream genres (comic books, photo comics
and telenovelas); the economical-political logics of media systems; the main
paradigms in the field of communicational sciences; their investigations on the
key aspects of the international communicational environment (telematics,
advertising, telecommunications, digitalization, surveillance, control); and
the historical research regarding communication-world structure in modernity
should be noticed. In this intricated set, a disrupted and continued historical
epistemology, articulated in a strategical way developed from Marx critical
thinking is prioritized and combined with contributions from dialectical,
existential, heuristics and hermeneutical philosophies updated in the twentieth
and early twenty-first centuries.
Given the relevance and critical power of the Mattelart line of thought,
it is essential for Brazil and Latin America to update and present it to new
generations problematizing elements crucial to the research in this field,
which can be strengthened in dialogue and confrontation with the Mattelarts. A
special issue in MATRIZes on this subject will contribute to the excellent work
the journal has been accomplishing.
Indicatively but not restrictively, we suggest the following aspects to
be explored:
- Contributions of the methodological theoretical approach of Mattelart’s thought.
- Critical Latin American communicational thinking and the Mattelart line contribution.
- World-communication as an aspect of the historical epistemology of the Mattelart line rupture and continuity.
- Critical research and strategic communicational thinking in communication, according to the Mattelart line.
- Mattelart line and the critical analysis of leftist governments in Latin America.
- Transactional systems of communication, power and democracy in Latin America from the perspective of Mattelart line.
- Critical investigation of Mattelart line in communication and popular genres (comics, telenovelas, photo comics, TV series) in Latin America.
Please send any inquiries to Roseli Figaro - figaro@uol.com.br
We are glad to announce a special edition of MATRIZes
(September-December 2020) dedicated to Armand and Michèle Mattelart’s thoughts
on communication, edited by the researchers A. Efendy Maldonado (Unisinos University) and Roseli Figaro (University of São Paulo).
For this issue, submissions are open and will run until June 30, 2020.
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