Abstract
This edited collection, published in Portugal but written in English and freely accessible online, represents a contribution to the still largely uncharted field of broadcast audience history, as well as to the burgeoning field of memory and media research. In his introductory chapter, Carvalheiro argues for the benefits of using gender as a central analytical category in researching past media reception, pointing to its key role in shaping the everyday dynamics of media use, but also in structuring the relationships between media uses and other social and cultural practices, including consumption, religious practices and family routines. This focus on gender is maintained throughout the remainder of the book, which is split into two parts, one focusing on the gendered histories of media reception, the other examining the relationships between memory, media and audience interpretations. The chapters bring some interesting general reflections on the historical development of research on gender and audiences (Gray) and the benefits of life-course theory and visual and audio sources (Policarpo). The greatest strength of the collection, however, lies in its empirical chapters, which bring to light experiences that often remain excluded or marginalised in mainstream accounts of media history and mediated memory. These include a case study of reception in the context of a working class community of women in Salazar’s Portugal (Carvalheiro and Tomás); the gendered understandings of the past circulated during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Portuguese public television in 2007 (Álvares); the role of gender and television in shaping the memories of Spanish emigrants in Europe (Gutiérrez); and the relationships between mediated memories, family and politics among Portuguese Muslim women (Valdigem).