What does it mean, for the educator, to form a critical and an autonomous reader? What is the concept of criticality and autonomy? In what way(s) can it mediate the reading process in order to provide autonomy and critical thinking for the reader of texts transmitted by the media? This article discusses these issues, searching, through the available literature in the area, to understand how the reader in formation selects the readings arising from the media, and how he positions himself in relation to them, considering the almost unlimited access to texts currently available. In view of the volume of texts to which contemporary society now has access, especially those coming through the mass media, including cyberspace, it is important to discuss, in the context of education, how the reader in formation — more precisely the student in basic education — selects and receives such texts. This article therefore discusses the role of the media in the model of present society; seeks to understand the meaning of autonomy and criticality in this context; considers whether the readers that the school has formed correspond to this profi le; and refl ects on what it means, and through which didactic proposals it is possible, to form this model reader