As advanced societies move further into the 21st century, the conviction is spreading that their future will be played out in a sphere which is enormously complex and difficult to delimit. Some experts have named this the communications macrosector, a term which is semantically related to others such as the Information Society, Knowledge Society or Network Society. The Internet and mobile communications are one network which forms part of the Information and Communication Technologies and their most visible manifestations, and it is through this network that the very sustainability of the political and economical model of civilization passes.

One of the most everyday and perhaps even popular manifestations of this awakening is the repeated use of an expression which diagnoses the biggest and most diverse problems, whether this is in the local corner shop or a big multinational, in the nursery schools or the universities, in neighbourhood associations or in the governments of the great powers: “We have a communication problem”. Communication has become the dimension on to which we project our anxieties and from we expect solutions to our conflicts. The communications problem is currently one of the most common and powerful metaphors for the confusion and hope of our times.

It is evident that we working under an illusion, because perfect communication will not on its own automatically sort out everything that does not work properly. However, it is also true that striving for excellence in this area can be of help and can make the world better. Thus, with this vocation in mind, the URV-Repsol Chair for Excellence in Communication was born.

With this new structure, the URV, with the support of Repsol YPF, aims to create and disseminate knowledge regarding the behaviour and evolution of the communications macro-sector and the economic, cultural and political interactions in Tarragona and Catalonia as a whole. Such knowledge contributes to improving the ethics and aesthetics of the communications practices in which we are immersed, both in terms of the production and diffusion of content (the perspective of the cultural industries) and the consumption thereof by the public (the perspective of the user and public opinion).
This focus allows the Chair to have a broad range in terms of its field of study, and its messages, channels, support and communications goals in areas such as publicity, written journalism, audiovisual journalism, the web, the blogosphere, public relations, corporate communication, political communication, posters, photography, documental cinema, televisual fiction, public policies regarding communications, etc.

The Chair has its base in the research group Asterisc, made up of research professors in Communications working on different lines of research.

• Jordi Farré
• Av. Catalunya, 35. 43002 Tarragona
• 977 558 532
• catedra.comunicacio@urv.cat

Links

• Repsol YPF
• Asterisc

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