Prospectiva de la formación en comunicación y periodismo en América Latina

Résumé

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to contribute to the development of guidelines for university training in the fields of communication and journalism in Latin America through the identification of possible future scenarios. To achieve this, we resort to the examination of the factors circumscribed to the institutional framework of education, the historiographic exploration of the origin and development of communication and journalism as well as the constitution of university training schools. Also, to the analysis of the regional offer of university education in the field of knowledge; to the identification of the high impact informative conditions of the Latin American and world scientific production in communication and journalism issues, and to the recognition of methodological and curricular aspects that in perspective have to be considered by the academic units. The research project has a qualitative orientation of an exploratory nature, with a historiographic dimension and with perceptual support. For doing this, the research instruments and fieldwork are aimed at obtaining results that nurture considerations and approaches to possible scenarios of upcoming training in communication and journalism. Such a qualitative approach measures empirical and analytical features that consult the educational experience of communication from the approach of regional and international experts in the field of knowledge. Similarly, research is conducted on the history of the institutional framework of academic programs in Latin America, and an updated information survey is carried out on the university education offer in the countries of the region. Among the most important results, we can highlight: university training in communication and journalism in Latin America was marked from the beginning by a high institutional influence of the United Nations, the coordination of Unesco and the promotion of Ciespal (1). On the other hand, the visibility of scientific production in communication and journalism by researchers and universities in Latin America is low and with a lack of effective dissemination strategies and guidelines (2). Regarding the university educational offer in the 20 countries of the region, it is identified that it is highly concentrated in the level of higher education of bachelor's degrees (under graduate, undergraduate and baccalaureate) and with a progressive growth in the presentation of master's degrees and a minimum result in the opening and operation of doctorates and specializations (specialties) (3). It was evidenced that the countries with the greatest educational development and scientific production in the field of communication and journalism are Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Peru. This fact coincides with its leadership in the visibility of its scientific production and in proportion to the size of its educational offer (4). On the other hand, from the consultation with 139 experts from 39 countries and from the personalized dialogue with 20 of the most influential in the field, it is the contrast of their ideal perceptions of education and the forecasts about communication and journalism training in America Latin. The retrospective, introspective and perspective exercise of the research allows us to conclude that while the education of the new times will force greater curricular flexibility, the presentation of more innovative and risky educational offers. Also, that regardless of the prioritization of research applied to local contexts, the openness and interdiscilinarity with other areas of knowledge and attention to the demands of the context and organizations, communication training in Latin America will remain stagnant in the preservation of paradigms, approaches and approaches that have been maintained since its creation. There will be a higher level of occurrence of a political cultural teaching, above critical training, socio-technical and pragmatic, with medium levels of qualification of the teaching establishment, insufficient dialogue with other fields of knowledge, high supply and demand for education and low quality of theoret ical and applied research, poor knowledge transfer to society and rigid curricular structures.