To understand the textual strategies deployed in the media. To understand the reasons for the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of media communications. To acquire the ability to make a critical analysis of the main media products.

The course aims to provide the foundations for semiotic analysis and tools for understanding mediated communication. The set of discursive procedures that shape the relationship between enunciator, enunciatee, and text¿whether verbal, visual, or audiovisual¿will be examined. Particular attention will be paid to the strategies of veridiction and the role of believing in persuasive communication. 1. Media genres 2. Documentariness and fictionality 3. Journalistic discourse 4. Advertising discourse 5. Political discourse

Lectures will present the fundamental concepts of the subject and illustrate them through case studies. Students will deepen their knowledge by reading the texts suggested in class and, working in groups and individually, will apply the analytical tools learned to other examples. During the weeks of the course, group and individual tutorships will be held to clarify doubts that may arise.