Introduction to Communication and Media Studies Information Skills Writing and Communication Skills Image Theory

1. Ability to identify basic psychological processes in communication 2. Basic knowledge of psychological functions and mechanisms involved in communication processes 3. Ability to identify and understand psychological dimensions in reception processes. Knowledge to identify and understand psychological effects of media on human development 4. Introductory knowledge about mediations and the ecological system of mediations in human mind

MODULE 1. Essentials of psychophysics and phenomenology of the spectatorship experience in pre-cinema and in early cinema 1. 1. Reality as a sign system and the photo-cinematic trace as index of the reality. Photography and the limits of visible. The reality impression. Gaze and representation (lingüistic and freudian approach). 1. 2 Image machines. Essentials of the psychophysics of perception in the moving image. Retinal persistence (pre-cinema) and the perspectiva artificialis: cinema as an open window to the world. Gaze and desire: the scopic pulsion. 1. 3. The assimilation of the representational patterns of the moving image. The building of the pectatorship in early cinema. MODULE 2. Narrative cinema as a desiring journey 2. 1. The Institutional Mode of Representation and the spectator¿s ubiquity. Construction and perception of the cinematic message through the continuity: the Kuleshov effect. 2. 2. The Oedipal plot and the imaginary identification. The invention of the close shot and the cinegenia as engines of fascination. 2. 3. The associative logic of the dreams and the subversión of reality. Surrealism and avant-garde. 2. 4. From fascination to the ¿final ideological conclusion¿. The cinema of attractions and the emotional shock. MODULE 3. Building emotions on cinema and on the media 3. 1. Laughter and the comic effect. 3. 2. Melancholia and the melodramatic effect. 3.3. Anxiety. The Culture of Fear. MODULE 4. Authenticity and spectacle. New modes of perception in the digital era 4. 1. From the era of simulacra to YouTube. New Logics of the information and new ways of perceiving reality. 4. 2. From synthesis image to 3D. The logic of spectacle and the return to the cinema of attractions. 4. 3. Cinema, reality, and the missing trace. Phenomenology of perception in the present time. 4. 4. Creative memory, creative documentary. The power of imagination and the figuration of the real

1. Lectures or class presentations on psychological processes, mediation and reception. Competencies 3 and 4 (1 ECTS). 2. Laboratory, classroom and everyday experiences in psychological processes concerning basic functions. Competencies 3 and 4 (1 ECTS). 3. Student's work. Supervised study of the theoretical and practical contents and teaching materials. Competencies 1, 2, and 3 (1,5 ECTS). Term papers. Writing an academic essay on technology and media processes applying the program's theoretical and practical criteria. Competency 4. (2 ECTS).