History of Communication
Code: 103854 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2501933 Journalism | FB | 1 | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- María José Recoder Sellarés
- Email:
- mariajosep.recoder@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.
Teachers
- Carolina Escudero
- David Rull Ribó
- José Manuel Silva Alcalde
Prerequisites
No specific knowledge is required other than those obtained after taking High School.
It is assumed that students dominate Catalan and / or oral Spanish, writing and reading comprehension.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The course is held in the first course during the first semester and belongs to the training block of "Communication".
From this subject students will achieve fundamental objectives of the Degree in Journalism, which should help them to:
- Demonstrate that they have a basic knowledge of the current dynamics of the world that allows them to frame current information in its context.
- Gather and relate data from everyday reality that include a reflection on relevant topics of all kinds to interpret and disseminate to society.
- Reflect on the changes that have taken place in the communicative field throughout the centuries, and how this transforms the human, cultural, political, economic and social relations of humanity.
Competences
- Act with ethical responsibility and respect for fundamental rights and duties, diversity and democratic values.
- Demonstrate a critical and self-critical capacity.
- Demonstrate a self-learning and self-demanding capacity to ensure an efficient job.
- Demonstrate adequate knowledge of Catalonia's socio-communicative reality in the Spanish, European and global context.
- Differentiate the discipline's main theories, its fields, conceptual developments, theoretical frameworks and approaches that underpin knowledge of the subject and its different areas and sub-areas, and acquire systematic knowledge of the media's structure.
- Disseminate the area's knowledge and innovations.
- Identify modern journalistic traditions in Catalonia, Spain and worldwide and their specific forms of expression, as well as their historic development and the theories and concepts that study them.
- Manage time effectively.
- Research, select and arrange in hierarchical order any kind of source and useful document to develop communication products.
- Students can apply the knowledge to their own work or vocation in a professional manner and have the powers generally demonstrated by preparing and defending arguments and solving problems within their area of study.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
- Take account of social, economic and environmental impacts when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
- Take sex- or gender-based inequalities into consideration when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
- Use a third language as a working language and means of professional expression in the media.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse the sex- or gender-based inequalities and the gender biases present in one's own area of knowledge.
- Communicate using language that is not sexist or discriminatory.
- Contextualise the different journalistic trends and the work of renowned journalists.
- Critically analyse the principles, values and procedures that govern the exercise of the profession.
- Demonstrate a critical and self-critical capacity.
- Demonstrate a self-learning and self-demanding capacity to ensure an efficient job.
- Describe the structure of the media and its dynamics.
- Differentiate the specificities of audiovisual languages.
- Disseminate the area's knowledge and innovations.
- Explain the development of modern international journalistic traditions.
- Find substance and relevance in documents on theory, structure and communication in a third language.
- Identify the fundamentals of theories and the history of communication.
- Identify the media system and groups that have had, at a given point in time, the power to inform, and be able to describe the legal framework that exerts a certain governance on the media.
- Identify the principal forms of sex- or gender-based inequality and discrimination present in society.
- Identify the social, economic and environmental implications of academic and professional activities within one's own area of knowledge.
- Identify the structural foundations of the communication system.
- Interpret and discuss texts regarding the main communication and journalism theories and present the summary of the analysis in writing and in public.
- Link social analysis and impacts of new communication technologies.
- Link the historic development of journalistic forms and traditions with the groups that have had, at a given point in time, the power to inform and the manner in which this power was accessed.
- Manage time effectively.
- Research, select and arrange in hierarchical order any kind of source and useful document to develop communication products.
- Students can apply the knowledge to their own work or vocation in a professional manner and have the powers generally demonstrated by preparing and defending arguments and solving problems within their area of study.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
Content
The detailed calendar with the content of the different sessions will be presented on the day of presentation of the subject. It will also be posted on the Virtual Campus where students will be able to find a detailed description of the exercises and practices, the various teaching materials and any information necessary for the proper follow-up of the subject. In case of change of teaching modality for health reasons, the teachers will inform of the changes that will take place in the programming of the subject and in the teaching methodologies.
TOPIC 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF COMMUNICATION
1.1. What is communication?
1.2. Acceleration and changes in communication
1.3. The importance of communicative stages
1.4. The role of the communicative supports.
1.5. Crisis and digital revolution
1.6. Conclusions
TOPIC 2. ORAL - GESTURAL COMMUNICATION
2.1.The capacity of language
2.2.Human evolution and communication
2.3.Symbolic thought
2.4.The body as a communicative support
2.5. Representing the world: Communication in animist societies
2.6. Domestication
2.7. Oral-gestural communication today
2.8. Conclusions
TOPIC 3. WRITING
3.1. Birth and development of writing
3.2. From pictograms to phonetisation
3.3. The importance of writing media and writing instruments
3.4. The impact of writing on social, economic and cultural organisation 3.5.
3.5. The invention of the book
3.6. Writing as an art: monasteries and copyists.
3.7. Literacy, Writing and Power
3.8. Women and writing
3.9. Societies without writing
3.10. Conclusions
TOPIC 4. THE PRINTING PRESS
4.1. Europe at the time of the invention of the printing press
4.2. Gutenberg's printing press
4.3. The expansion of books: from incunabula to great libraries 4.4.
4.4. The printing of texts and its social influence
4.5. The periodisation of news: from advertisements to gazettes and newspapers.
4.6. Propaganda systems: Luther and religious propaganda
4.7. The Enlightenment and the shaping of the public space of bourgeois opinion
4.8. The printing press and the control of violence
4.9. Conclusions
TOPIC 5. COMMUNICATION AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
5.1. Conceptual and material bases of the Industrial Revolution
5.2. Industry, economy and the energy revolution.
5.3. The role of transport and communication routes 5.4.
5.4. Industrialisation and leisure
5.5. The importance of cities and the changes they bring.
5.6. Technical progress in the world of communication. The abolition of distance: the telegraph, the telephone and postal services.
5.7. The importance of public opinion and the press.
5.8. Creation of press agencies.
5.9. Photography and the precedents of the moving image.
5.10. Conclusions
TOPIC 6. THE MASS MEDIA
6.1. The emergence of radio and cinema.
6.2. The mobilisation of the press during the First World War.
6.3. Public and private systems of management of new mass media. 6.4.
6.4. Television
6.5. The written press in the face of new challenges.
6.6. Illustrated magazines
6.7. Silent and sound films
6.8. Cinematographic newsreels
6.9. Publicity and propaganda: uses and exploitation of the media in totalitarian states and in democracies
6.10. The mobilisation of the media during World War II
6.11. The explosion of television and competition with radio and cinema
6.12. The creation of the Star System
6.12.Conclusions
TOPIC 7. THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AND THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
7.1. The communication industry and the technology companies.
7.2. The victory of audiovisuals over the printing press and the book culture.
7.3. Globalisation of the information society.
7.4. Computerisation and new technologies in leisure and work.
7.5. Communicative immediacy: from the Internet to reality shows.
7.6. The new technological illiteracy and the digital divide: access to information.
7.7. A world of screens: effects on health and human relations. Social networks
7.8. Artificial Intelligence (AI). What does the future hold?
7.9. Conclusions
Methodology
Learning will be based on several aspects:
- Reading basic texts about the history of communication.
- The case study of several topics where you will have to work individually or in groups.
- Oral presentations in the classroom about the topics studied. Collaborative work and the capacity for critical analysis and reflection will be encouraged.
The subject fosters sensitivity to the gender perspective in a transversal manner.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Lectures | 46 | 1.84 | 4, 1, 21, 2, 6, 5, 20, 13, 12, 16, 14, 23, 22, 11 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Practical activities | 75.5 | 3.02 | 3, 7, 8, 10, 18, 19 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading | 21 | 0.84 | 4, 1, 21, 2, 6, 5, 9, 20, 15, 14, 17, 23, 22, 11 |
Assessment
The assessment of the subject for students who take continuous assessment consists of three parts, the specific weight of which is:
- Practices: 40% grade
- Exam: 50% mark. No notes
- Class participation and justified self-assessment: 10% mark.
To pass the subject, an average grade will be made between the 3 parts. It is necessary that they pass the exam with 5 points and that the grade resulting from doing the average of the practices, which must be done all of them, is a minimum of 5 points. If someone does not do any practice for any justified reason, it will be graded with a 0 and an average grade will be given as well.
You can only retake the exam. In order to go to recovery, the students must have taken the course exam in the first call and have obtained a minimum grade of 3 points.
The assessable practical activities are distributed throughout the course and are related to key aspects of the subject and the subject's syllabus. There will be individual practices and others in groups.
Coursework or exams that have more than 5 errors in spelling and/or grammatical structure will be suspended.
All the details of the evaluation system will be specified on the first day of class and will be made public in the subject's Moodle Classroom.
Unique assessment:
This subject, being eminently theoretical, has been chosen so that students who wish to choose the single assessment option. All tests will be taken or delivered on the same day, which will be the date of the final exam. Students who choose this option will have the following evaluation system:
- Exam: 50% of the grade. It will not be the same exam as for continuous assessment students. Whoever chooses this option must read José Maria Perceval's Historia Mundial de la Comunicación books; and the book by Miquel de Moragas La comunicación y sus cambios. From the origins to the mobile. No notes
- Practices: 40% of the grade. The practical exercises will be given on the day of the exam. They will be individual exercises and not the same as the continuous assessment students.
- Case resolution: 10% of the grade. It will take place in the classroom on the same day as the exam. No notes
As with continuous assessment, only the exam can be retaken. In order to go to recovery, the students must have taken the course exam in the first call and have obtained a minimum grade of 3 points.
To pass the subject, the average grade of the three parts will be taken, having to get at least a 5 in the exam and the case resolution, and a 5 in the average grade of the practical, which must be done all.
Coursework or exams that have more than 5 errors in spelling and/or grammatical structure will be suspended.
All the details of the evaluation system will be specified on the first day of class and will be made public in the subject's Moodle Classroom.
In the event of a second registration, the student will be able to take a single synthesis test which will consist of a summary of the different assessment tests, theoretical and practical. The grade of the subject will correspond to the grade of the synthesis test.
Plagiarism:
If the student commits any irregularity that could lead to a significant variation in the grade of an assessment act, this assessment act will be graded with 0, regardless of the disciplinary process that may be instituted. If several irregularities occur in the evaluation acts of the same subject, the final grade for this subject will be 0. The use of Artificial Intelligence is considered prohibited unless the teaching staff explicitly gives permission.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exam | 50% | 3 | 0.12 | 4, 1, 21, 3, 6, 7, 5, 8, 9, 10, 20, 13, 12, 16, 15, 14, 17, 23, 18, 19, 11 |
| Participation in classroom activities | 10% | 3 | 0.12 | 4, 1, 21, 2, 3, 6, 7, 5, 8, 9, 10, 20, 13, 12, 16, 15, 14, 17, 23, 22, 18, 19, 11 |
| Practical activities supervised and directed | 40% | 1.5 | 0.06 | 4, 1, 21, 2, 6, 20, 16, 15, 14, 23, 22, 18 |
Bibliography
REFERENCES
CALVET, Louis-Jean: Historia de la escritura, Barcelona, Paidos, 2001
DIAMOND, Jared: El mundo hasta ayer, Barcelona, Random House Mondadori, 2013.
FIGUERES, Josep M.: Resistència. La prensa en català. Censura i repressió. Base. 2019.
MORAGAS, Miquel de. La comunicación y sus cambios. De los orígenes al móvil. UAB, etc: Publicaciones universitarias, 2022. (Aldea Global, 44)
PERCEVAL, José María, Historia mundial de la comunicación, Cátedra, Madrid, 2015.
RUEDA-LAFFOND, José Carlos; GALÁN, Elena; RUBIO, Ángel. Historia de los medios de comunicaicón. Madrid, Alianza, 2014.
SCOLARI, Carlos A. La guerra de las plataformas. Del papiro al metaverso. Barcelona, Anagrama, 2022.
WILLIAMS, Raymond (ed.), Historia de la comunicación, Vol. I: Del lenguaje a la escritura. Vol. II: De la imprenta a nuestros días, Bosch Comunicación, Barcelona, 1992.
Software
No special software is required. Only Word or Powerpoint.