Webradio: Novos gêneros, novas formas de interação

Abstract

Technological transformations have profoundly altered the history of the radio. Apart from the consecutive progress, two ruptures from the point of view of language have marked the history of radiophony, precisely because of technology. The first rupture happened with the onset of TV; the second is in progress now, with webradios, which points to a new model of radiophony. This process of evolution, which we call radio morphosis, alters and reshapes the genres and forms of interaction present on the radio. The aim of this thesis is to understand the new genres and the new forms of interaction on webradios. To do this, a qualitative research was performed, with a corpus restricted to 30 broadcasting stations, classified in three large groups (hertzian, hertzian with presence on internet, and webradios). In each group, the two categories of analysis of this thesis were studied: genre and interaction. As part of the study into interaction on webradios, a survey about usability of homepages was also done. Based on theoretical reference and the research performed, we concluded that the new genres of webradios are chats, e-mails (electronic messages), electronic addresses, surveys, and forums, all genuinely originated from digital media. But the traditional hertzian radiophony genres in internet environments are also new. They deal with hybrid forms, born from the complex digital structure of webradios. The webradio can be understood as a constellation of genres, which shelter old, new, and hybrid formats. As new forms of interaction on webradios, we can list chats, forums, surveys, and e-mails (electronic mail). But as the web is a heterogeneous environment, which allows more manipulation than the hertzian radio, webradios make available various interactive tools to their users with the objective of attracting and inducing the loyalty of their public. The main one, is certainly the site itself, determinatively polyphonic, marked by voices not only producing sound, as on the hertzian radio, but also structurally formed by texts and images.