The centrality of audiovisual communication in the digital environment: proposals based on experience in training

Abstract

The new centrality acquired in recent decades by audiovisual communication in the emerging digital environment should stimulate communication studies departments to place special emphasis on research, analysis and debate that will help them (and other departments) to adapt to the new network-society, to make advances in the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to the teaching-learning process, and to develop new teaching methodologies for which there is an ever increasing need and demand. There is a long tradition in communications studies, and particularly audiovisual studies, of using ICT and collaborative learning approaches. This faculty is also in a position to make interesting contributions to the definition and scope of digital literacy and to the universalization of technology, a process in which the multiplatform and multiregister character of the audiovisual language acquires greater importance. Clearly opting for a Vygotskian sociocultural constructivism based on the construction of knowledge, the author discusses a series of changes that university educational institutions and their faculties should make more effort to implement with greater responsibility. The article also suggests an initial approach taking the form of several proposals that, it is hoped, will interest teachers and researchers and prompt them to set out with greater assurance on this road of no return.