The communication industry (and the multiple associated concepts: media, entertainment media, information industry, cultural industries, creative industries) is in continuous transformation. This transformation has multiple roots (economic, industrial, political—in the sense of policy-, social—e.g., the demand—philosophical, epistemological, etc.). This implies the need to study these changes with a multidisciplinary approach.

The main objective of this course is to analyze the vectors of change that transform the cultural industries, with special emphasis, in the audio-visual communication. To this end, changes in the value chain of cultural industries (creation, production, distribution and demand) are considered. Immediately there are issues related to copyright, the appearance of new production and distribution agents (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, HBO …) and the amount of content consumed is also considered, combining different activities.

The study of the changes in the creation, production, distribution and demand of the contents must be complemented with the consideration of the problems that are generated: excess supply (not demand), monopoly, privacy problems, polarization, and disinformation. At the same time, there are normative issues arising from civil society – diversity, gender equality – that must be integrated. That is why political issues must be included in our analysis.

The context in which changes are happening is complex, as reflected by the fact that there are multiple concepts or theoretical frames, each addressing a partial category of the ongoing transformations: platform capitalism, Knowledge Society, Information Society, Surveillance Society, etc.

We live in a global world. It is easy to enunciate, but in fact, we observe that there are different geostrategic areas. The geographical area that we will consider is fundamentally Western, but we should not lose sight of the global aspects (China, Latin America, Africa, etc.).

1. Study the contemporary context in which changes occur: Information Society, Knowledge Society, Creative Industries, Post-Fordism.

2. Analyze changes in the communication and entertainment system along the value chain.

3. To study the problems that change generates: excess content supply, monopoly, non-existent privacy, reduced diversity, gender equality in theory but to a lesser extent in practice, ideological polarization, disinformation.

4. Consider the aspects of governance (regulation, negotiation processes between public and private actors) as an element that must seek the harmony within the value chain and manage the impacts of economic agents.

1-Communication Networks: The Network Society? Social Media and Communication:

The society of unequal communication: Politics, Communication and Social Participation.

2-New forms of Authorship and Ownership (cooperation and synergy). Cultural enterprises and new modes of production. The precarization of the author.

3-Audiovisual Production, Distribution and Technology: Convergence. New synergies between products and cultural projects; increasing interaction with the receiver.

4-New trends in consumption of culture and mass communication: second screen, social networks, social television...

5-New models of commercialization and financing of Culture and Communication (Crowdfunding, long-tail...). New business models.

6. New communication policies.

7-Identities on social networks and the influence of social media on young people.

This is a 6 credits' course, which means an estimate workload of 150 hours: 60 of them are dedicated to face-to-face sessions with the teacher (through power point presentations, articles, interviews, videos or presentations from experts in the field) and the other 90 hours are established for autonomous work.

• Continuous Assessment System
• Final Assessment System
• Tools and qualification percentages:
  • Written test to be taken (%): 20
  • Individual works (%): 30
  • Team projects (problem solving, project design)) (%): 50

The student will be marked preferably through continuous evaluation, and final grading will be based on that, divided into two aspects: 50% of Individual Jobs (Including a written exam), 50% of Group work.

If the student, according to the regulations of the UPV/EHU, chooses not to be marked by the continuous evaluation, she or he will be able to complete a non-continuous assessment.

In this juncture, students will have to submit a written document to the professor responsible for the subject, explaining the renunciation of the continuous evaluation, for which they will have a period of 9 weeks. The final evaluation modality will then include 100% of the assessment, and it will bring together both theoretical and practical aspects as it follows:

-A written exam with questions to be developed: 50% of the evaluation.

-Practical work to be delivered at the time of the exam: 50% of the evaluation.

This evaluation system will be applied both to face-to-face and non-face-to-face modalities, if the situation requires it.

In the extraordinary assessment, the same evaluation system will be employed as for those who choose the non-continuous evaluation (the final evaluation modality) in the ordinary assessment.

Basic bibliography

-Bennett, W., & Livingston, S. (Eds.). (2020). The Disinformation Age: Politics, Technology, and Disruptive Communication in the United States (SSRC Anxieties of Democracy). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108914628. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/disinformation-age/1F4751119C7C4693E514C249E0F0F997

-KEA,. New “Market Analysis of the Cultural and Creative Sectors in Europe” (2021). En https://keanet.eu/new-market-analysis-of-the-cultural-and-creative-sectors-in-europe/

-Werbach, K. (Ed.). (2020). After the Digital Tornado: Networks, Algorithms, Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108610018. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/after-the-digital-tornado/B746434A076A9EC7FD10AF12D69E6EA4

Para los efectos.

In-depth bibliography

Lauhileko hasieran iragarriko da.