Communicatheo

Idioma Original

We seek that Communicatheo can be seen as a continuous will to contribute to the field of communications, especially in communicology. Perhaps, from our point of view, this is the most ancient and concrete social science, and this point of discussion must be opened. Since it is an intention too wide, by now, we only want to study communicology in the area of what is strategic. We hope that this website will become gradually a meeting and exchanging site of professors, researchers and selective actors of this discipline that participate in the global market and in politics, with different points of view and quite dispersion. We only want that, little by little, the contribution of different visions and information can be incorporated and consequently, they extend in profundity and variety the knowledge of the topic and it applications.

Mt Konocti from the air, by Erin Montague

Obviously, we meet everyday different corporative executives and other people that work in the field of communication. We can hear and observe with some kind of astonishment their daily labour life and their structural limitations. This is the background that made us create this column with a general vision on the topic, rather than begin with a debatable definition of communications, which we leave pending.

How to give a starting point? Perhaps, firstly, we must be situated in the main idea of communicology and its perspective in relation to other social sciences which are mixed up in daily life. Oin my opinion, a good starting point could be the Beginning that the anthropologist and philosopher Néstor García Canclini writes in his book Culturas Híbridas¹, answering his own question: how can we talk about the modern city, that sometimes it’s no longer modern neither a city? To talk about the topic, on his opinion, in the book, “social sciences contribute with their different levels of observation. The anthropologist arrives at the city on foot, the sociologist by car and using the central highway, the communicologist by plane. Each one builds a different vision, which it’s not acquired entering the city but going out of it…” and he adds the concept which establishes that between the messages that must be handled in the modern world in order to tag it as a cultured one and to tag the universe as popular, a third system of massive messages is born. This system is assisted by new specialists: communicologists and semiologists.

“The anthropologist arrives at the city on foot, the sociologist by car and using the central highway, the communicologist by plane.”

The proposal of professor García-Canclini gives ubiquity to communicology in contemporary social sciences. It also makes easier to define his perspective and his areas of application. However, we disagree with the idea that our field has born from the cultural industries that sprouted strongly during the twenty century.

Recommended reading:

1. Culturas híbridas. Editorial Paidos, para Argentina y Uruguay. Néstor García Canclini.
2. Prolegomenon, 1st. part
3. Interview with Tim O’Reilly
   

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Volunteer translation by Montse Parera Yepes

Montse Parera Yepes studied Translation and Interpretation at the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. She has experience as a translator in Barcelona as well as editorial proofreading. If you want to contact her for work, please write to joboard@communicatheo.com

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