Seminário de Especialidade em Comunicação e Ciências Sociais (not translated)
Code
73201105
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Ciências da Comunicação
Credits
10
Teacher in charge
Francisco Rui Cádima
Weekly hours
2
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
To acquire a knowledge in depth of the interdisciplinary area of social sciences, having as the
theoretical ground a scientific questioning of communication as a relational, intersubjective and
multifaceted phenomenon.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
The study of the relationship between the public sphere and democracy in the context of
contemporary societies is aimed at establishing communication as one of its main research
lines.
Complex societies and pluralist cultures are problematized due to their fragmented public
sphere and public opinion, to the new social movements and social identities and by a more
complex structuring of power.
These realities will be studied in a double communicational perspective: 1. communication as
an object and field of study; and 2. communication as an epistemological paradigm for the
understanding of social reality (understood as social relations based in mutual comprehension).
A closer look at the emergent phenomenon of the new digital networks allows a new way to look
at the primordial question of this research paradigm: as a new meaning for political possibilities
that are being opened to a civil society more radically deliberative with this new exchange
structures, and communication and information flows.
Bibliography
− J. Bohman (1996) Public deliberation, Cambridge, Mit Press.
− Honneth (1995) The fragmented world of the social, NY State University, NYPress
− J. Habermas (1992) Facticidad y validez, Madrid, Trotta.
− J. Pissarra Esteves (2003) Espaço público e democracia, Lisboa, Colibri.
− J. Pissarra Esteves (org.) (2008) Comunicação e identidades sociais, Lisboa, Livros Horizonte.
Teaching method
The teaching methodologies must be understood as closely following an explanatory logic, attained both by the teachers framing of the syllabus contents as much as by the readings of texts and the discussion of the proposed themes by the students. The involvement of the students in the active interpretation of the texts and concepts, as much as in the research, plays a crucial role in the achievement of the learning outcomes; in order to reach that goal, there is a close tutorial accompaniment by the teacher, also aiming at enabling the student to obtain a critical stance towards the issues considered as central to the curricular unit.
Evaluation method
Students make a presentation of his research essays (both the proposal and the research reports); they will be closely tutored by the teacher of the curricular unit.