The Media Theory course (hereinafter, MMT) stands as a foundational pillar upon which the Cultural Studies degree at our university is built. Strategically and appropriately located in the first year, MMT is conceived as a gateway to a complex and fascinating universe of thinkers, researchers, theories, and histories, providing students with the conceptual tools necessary to understand the communicative processes that shape our society (Craig, 1999: 119) and frameworks for interpreting the reality of journalism and communication. The course has been dubbed by UC3M students as "the philosophy of the program."
MMT is not a stand-alone subject, but rather a bridge that connects different disciplines, from sociology and psychology to philosophy and linguistics. Its introductory and cross-curricular nature makes it a required subject (Craig, 1999: 120) for the degrees in Cultural Studies and Journalism, and for the double degrees in Journalism and Audiovisual Communication and Journalism and Humanities. This pedagogical decision is not accidental, but rather aims to establish a common language and a shared theoretical framework for all those wishing to delve into the field of public communication.
As a subject shared by various degrees and aligned with European higher education standards, the TMC facilitates the international mobility of our students. The exchange agreements our university maintains with prestigious European institutions also value solid training in communication theory (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2024), precisely because it provides depth and perspective.
The TMC is also a journey through the history of journalism and public communication, exploring the ideas that have shaped our understanding of how we communicate and how the media, journalists, business leaders, and social actors influence our lives. But it is not possible to learn them all in one semester, in an organized and logical way. Of the more than 249 communication theories compiled by Anderson (Craig, 1999: 120), specialists agree that it is not possible to articulate and discuss them all in depth in one semester. Therefore, our choice is clear: it is not about filling our students' minds with knowledge but rather about igniting a flame, making students fall in love with the perspective so that they can recognize it, reformulate it, and propose it, when necessary, in the various professional environments in which they work. Therefore, my main objective in this course is to approach, in an engaging way, the legacy of the great thinkers who have dedicated their lives to unraveling the different and complex dimensions of journalism, public communication, and nonfiction.
From the classics, such as Harold Lasswell with his iconic phrase "propaganda is cheaper than war" (1979: 51), to more contemporary theorists who explore the challenges of the digital age, such as Marshall McLuhan and his famous phrase "The medium is the message" (McLuhan, 1996: 14), we study the different schools and currents that have structured our object of study. We analyze their ideas, arguments, and research, revealing the keys to understanding the communicative phenomena that surround us and the questions they attempted to answer.
The perspective of the classics offers us an invaluable historical framework for interpretation. Authors such as Harold Lasswell, Paul Lazarsfeld, and Stuart Hall not only introduce us to their theories but also to the historical and social context in which they were formulated. Most of them emerged during times of profound social change, similar to those we are experiencing in our time. This allows us to understand how they have evolved and why they remain relevant despite all of them having detractors.
Furthermore, the classics provide us with a clearer conceptual framework upon which to build our own knowledge. Their ideas serve as a starting point for analyzing contemporary communication phenomena, from the influence of social media on politics to the reconstruction of reality through the media, precisely because the questions, despite the passage of time, remain the same.
However, we cannot remain stuck in the past. It is essential to connect this theoretical knowledge with current reality. To this end, in this course we also introduce practical cases that allow us to apply the concepts learned, recognize situations, and propose career paths. This is what I call "finding a place for professional practice again" or "reinventing the profession."
We analyze successful and unsuccessful social events (Belvedere, 2015), study media coverage of relevant events, and debate
