Teaching code

4S02208

Credits

12

Coordinator

Tommaso Tuppini

Language

Italian

Moodle Seminars 0

The teaching is organized as follows:

Learning outcomes

1ST PART
The course aims at following a close examination of some themes and fundamental problems of communication practices. It develops a critical reflection on the paradigms that dominate the average understanding of communication, especially the information model. The course will make students aware about main theoretical questions of communication. The character of the course is monographic and will focus on a theme relevant to communication theory.

2ND PART
The course intends to critically analyse the concept of the ethics of communication and its role in society, focusing on the relationship between (mass)media communication and human “person”, who is both user, receiver, and “manager” (but, more and more frequently, a “bare gear”) of the communication process and the technologies employed. The purpose of the course is not only to provide students with conceptual grounds and critical methodology which would make them even more aware of the ethical implications of communication (with regard to its key players and means involved in), but also to allow the acquisition of a language and skills so as to be able to deal with ethical challenges arising from an interconnected and multicultural world.

Program

MODULO I

DESIRE AND COMMUNICATION

"By slow degrees the mind becomes convinced of the supreme reality of these images. At first limiting itself to submitting to them, it soon realizes that they flatter its reason, and increase its knowledge accordingly. The mind becomes aware of the limitless expanses wherein its desires are made manifest, where the pros and cons are constantly consumed, where its obscurity does not betray it. It goes forward, borne by these images which enrapture it, which scarcely leave it any time to blow upon the fire in its fingers. This is the most beautiful night of all, the lightning-filled night: day, compared to it, is night." They are words by André Breton, the father of Surrealism, celebrating the creative power and the new language of dreams which first discovered Sigmund Freud. Dream is the language of desire. Desire is not following the criteria of logic and linearity, but it works as theater of images that reveals the dreamer everything which in his desire overcomes awareness. The dream, according to Freud, is the "royal road to the unconscious", to the clear night of desire that can become a new reason for knowledge and meaning to our existence.

MODULO II

The contents of the course are:
1. The relationship between general ethics and special ethics: the case of the ethics of communication;
2. “To say” and “to do” an ethical communication.
3. Behavioural codes for communicators: between deontological codes for professional orders and systems of ethics.
4. Ethics “of” communication or ethics “in” communication? The case of K.-O. Apel’s transcendental-pragmatic ethics;
5. Communication and responsibility: analysis of the communication act between the present and the future, and between the eteronomy and moral autonomy.

Bibliography

Examination Methods

MODULO I

Written exam. The assessment of the learning outcomes includes a written test consisting of a questionnaire with open answers. The questions will be three and will concern the texts indicated in the bibliography. To answer the questions candidates will have 1h and 30m. Evaluation criteria: property of language, comprehension of texts and ability to autonomously process the knowledge acquired from texts.

MODULO II

The assessment of the learning outcomes of the key concepts of communication ethics will be done by means of a written test concerning the programme carried out during the course. The questions of the test will be divided into two categories:
• 26 multiple-choice questions about the notional-conceptual arguments of the course (each correct answer counts as 1 point; the wrong answer does not involve subtraction of points);
• 3 open questions about issues that require articulated and argued answers (students can choose the number of open questions to answer, each question counts as 2 points in case of excellence, for a total of 6 points).
Given that the grades are expressed in thirtieths, this allows the students to achieve the highest grade and eventually a “cum laude”.
The examination is the same for both attending students and those who can not attend lectures.