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THE VISITOR AS A SUBJECT OF THE EXPOSITIONMarília Xavier Cury – BrazilMuseum of Archeology and Ethnology, University of São PauloResumoEste texto apresenta o visitante e os profissionais de museus como sujeitos doprocesso comunicacional, a partir da visão da ciência da comunicação. Para tanto, otexto aborda as diferentes concepções de comunicação e propõe um modelo paraaplicação no universo museológico. A exposição e a ação educativa são consideradascomo linguagens museológicas que permitem o processo dialógico nos museus.Palavras-chaveSujeito do Museu. Comunicação Museológica. Pesquisa de Recepção. LinguagemExpositiva. Educação em Museus.The communication is one of the biggest human manifestations, fruit of theinterpersonal relations and culture. There are many reflections concerning what iscommunication and about the act of communicating. We can synthesize this reflection,in a single way, at the time of discussions originated from the science of thecommunication.One of the moments in evidence refers to the preoccupation about the transmission ofmessages by the communication means. The Mathematic Theory of Communication,of 1949, consists of the model of Claude E. Shannon and W. Weaver, that involvesthree points: a source (and, in consequence, the transmitter), a channel (the form asthe transmission is made) and the receptor. The information unit in this model is thebinary number − bit. Being a unit that could be measured, it could be possible also tocalculate the relation of the transmitted and received units and, in consequence, raisethe problems in the channel that caused the loose and/or not reception of part of theinformation 1 .Starting from the points of the process of communication − the emitter, the channel andthe receptor − one developed theories that defended substantially the power of theemitter, in relation to the receptor, in the enunciation and transmission of the messageand the passivity of the emitter. Two different streams have self excelled inside thisperspective: the Functionalist and that of Frankfurt, occurring that from the optic of thislast one the receptor is an oppressed victim of the communicational system.It is not the case of deeply developing here the foundations of the Schools Functionalistand of Frankfurt – what we made in a simple manner – but to make considerationsabout the relations and roles among emitter, receptor, and the means in thecommunication. Relations of power and/or submission and, many times, simplifying inregard to the dynamics that involves the communication.The present moment points to a model that understands communication as interaction,that is, “space” of negotiation of the message signification, considering that themessage is a proposition of the emitter to be discussed with the receptor. Also, thisconception starts from the presupposition that the message is not unique and closed,1 This model was brought to the museums in 1968 by Duncan Cameron who adapted it, incorporating thefeedback.201