Teorías de la comunicación: análisis comparativo entre las mallas curriculares de la carrera de comunicación de las universidades del Ecuador

Abstract

Communication theories are very specific to this area of knowledge, since they manage to capture, in their explanations, concepts and models, the great interdisciplinary dilemma of communication and the ambiguity of its object of study. Theories and their complexities, at the same time, manage to get into the academic fields where university students, fresh out of high school, can barely keep up with them and catch up with them until the career is well advanced or until they need them to solve a problem. Depending on their level of understanding and the kind of theories they’ve learned, students and future communicators will have different knowledge and experiences that will allow them to give answers and solve the doubts that trigger the communication processes and the world in general, in different ways. That’s why it makes sense to ask what kind of communication theories are taught in university classrooms. Throughout this work, we will try to answer this question, through a bibliographic research that provides clues of what has been the theoretical and academic teaching of communication in Ecuador and Latin America, to be able to understand current situations. The bibliographic information will be verified through a comparative analysis between the curricula of five Communication careers in the country. In advance, it is revealed that this work has had to consider other influential aspects in the shaping of curricula and in the careers` decision to teach some theories more than others. In addition, in order not to fall into the interdisciplinary trap of communication, it has been necessary to reflect on the importance of studying theories, which this involves and to resort to various sources to have more approximations to all communication theories.