Communication

Other than its discursive normality, how can public speaking be an artistic act? How do speaking and writing go together? How is public speaking different from casual conversation or informal briefing? If such an act entails a creative process, are there strategies for any public speaker to convey ideas not only in a comprehensible manner but also in an animating and persuasive fashion? What are other complications when language makes the challenge even more stupendous? From Aristotle to Obama, what commonalities are still practiced by these public figures?  

This course aims at incorporating three important elements together in presenting a successful speech in English: drafting ideas, structuring a narrative, and delivering a speech. The course goes through certain rhetorical analysis with certain successful written speeches and impressive public speeches. Throughout this small-sized, highly interactive course, students will also practice many ceremonial speeches such as how to draft and deliver such speeches as a welcome address, introductory statements, and closing remarks. Throughout the semester, the course will develop students’ creative ideas and narrative structuring: what to say and what to avoid. Participation and attendance are obligatory as part of students’ performance will be assessed by other members. 

The focus of this course is twofold: firstly, to study the nature of representations and the impact they have on our society through philosophy, cinema, literature, and art; and secondly, to develop a critical analysis of the image through aesthetics, political theories, cultural studies, and the philosophy of humor. It analyzes different scenarios of the image in order to circumscribe its "field of action," in particular, to understand the motives behind the objects of the representation, the impact on the spectators, and the socio-political consequences that they generate. The course discusses how technology facilitates the spread of images in our society and mirrors, to a certain extent, our way of life. It considers how, as means of communication, images convey our personal and public experiences on a daily basis, captivate our attention, influence our perception of the world, and, if images are to be considered representations, contain aesthetic and political components. 

This course covers the basics of radio language and the several expressive and narrative possibilities provided by this medium. It focuses on the most commonly used radio genres: news, reports, interviews, vox pops, and features. At the end of the semester, students produce a 20 minute radio program.  

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the first disciplines of Digital Marketing. It changes a lot over the years, switching from keyword-based logic to search intent answers. It is important to know all the fundamentals: words used, international scenario, the evolution of Search Engines, and the ranking factors. Since Google is the most used Search Engine in most of the world, all the topics covered in the course are based on Google guidelines. The course discovers the most impactful activities that can help websites to have success on Google, divided by: technical, internal, and external. The course examines how to build an informational architecture, and students work on a fashion web project, discovering how to approach the work and solve problems an SEO specialist would meet. With the help of Advertising, User Experience, Conversion Rate Optimization, Email Marketing and Web Analytics, SEO can express its real potential. The course demonstrates how the Digital Marketing initiatives can help each other to have the best opportunity to success online. There are other platforms where one can do SEO, such as YouTube, Pinterest, MyBusiness, and Amazon. The course explores the common points within Google SEO and others, to see how companies can take advantage of them. The course discusses topics including the basic of Search Engine Optimization; ranking factors for Google; the evolution of SEO; how to build a website informational architecture; SEO techniques, on site and off site and some tools to be used; how SEO can help other digital initiatives and vice versa (Advertising, User Experience, Email Marketing, etc.), how to do SEO, not only on Google; and how to track the results.

This course aims to understand the structural "power" of the media through examining how the media, people, and society affect one another. In addition, the course addresses public relations and communications so that students can foster media and digital competency to use “owned media” safely and effectively.

The course addresses the following topics:

1. Media and power: the danger of a single story; case studies
2. Media and gender
3. Media and ethnicity; case studies
4. Discourse analysis 
5. Interactive communications in the Digital and SDGs age; case studies
6. Interactive Communications and Global PR campaigns

This course examines images and photography to understand the role perspective plays in interpretation and meaning.

This course covers technical-commercial language in English used in the field of eonology (wine-making). It covers vocabulary used to discuss sensory analysis and tasting comments. It also focuses on professional communication techniques used in presentations, writing a CV, composing emails, engaging in sales, as well as interviews and promotions. 

This course offers a study of media theories and processes in the global world. Topics include: communication and media; television; modes of representation and reception; multiculturalism and the media; comics and superheroes; fan culture and participatory culture.

This course introduces intercultural communication. It reviews core theories and research in intercultural communication and examines various issues that arise when encountering differences with others, fostering an understanding of the opportunities and challenges involved in intercultural communication. 

This course discusses the intercultural relationship between philosophy and communication. It has the form of a two-sided program that reflects the observation that, in the intercultural context, communication and philosophy are in fact two sides of the same coin. The first side approaches the phenomenon of communication between cultures from a philosophical point of view. Not only the possibility and appearance of communication between civilizations are debated but also the typical philosophical mindsets and attitudes of the different cultures are addressed. The second side relates this all to the question of how to understand, describe, and evaluate the meeting between world philosophies as a phenomenon of intercultural communication. The general framework of the discussion is delivered by some classical models that were developed within the Theory of Communication. They function as tools that enable one to understand why and how culturally dissimilar philosophies can influence the process of intercultural communication and why and how the form and appearance of this kind of communication can or should be regarded as a kind of intercultural philosophy itself.