Abstract:

Curricular design in higher education institutions (HEI) involves the careful planning of educational contents in study plans according to aspects such as: the current political, economic and social context, as well as that of an institution itself: its working conditions, its characteristics and trends, and its institutional organization and structure. Culturally speaking, all curricular design is arbitrary in that it responds to the above mentioned elements, but also, and perhaps most importantly, to the vision developed by groups of academics with a certain cultural capital, institutionally and socially legitimized, and whose presence in the university has an important weight due to their knowledge or political power.

Without being naïve about the politically generated dynamics in institutions that can be determinant in the design of their curricula, in this case of professional training in Communication, we part from the assumption that for both academic and administrative staff of HEIs the prevailing purpose is to train students to a high level, with values and attitudes that allow them to contribute to their professional field. From this perspective, future literacy is a fundamental principle in the mission and vision of HEIs, both public and private, since it means developing critical thinking skills and tools for continuous learning to face the challenges of the professional field both currently and in the future.

In the context of higher studies in Communication in Mexico, this work considers the training in the journalistic field as strategic, since it is perceived as one of the articulating axes between the different knowledges, skills and values acquired by students in their academic career. Thus, the objective of this paper is to develop a brief qualitative and quantitative curricular analysis of Journalism subjects in 6 Communication curricula of recognized public and private universities, as part of a broader study that includes 60 IES in Mexico in the training of communicators. Subsequently, a curricular design proposal will be developed following the relationship between Journalism thematic contents with different areas of knowledge of the curricula as a fundamental principle. Such areas are:
(1) power structures, understood as the knowledge related to the interpretation of national and global political and economic relations;
(2) production logics or knowledge about production for media;
(3) discursive grammar, i.e., the theory and practice for writing and analyzing the elaboration of discourses;
(4) cultural dynamics, or the explanation of the context for understanding human interactions;
(5) research, which refers to the mastery of research methodologies; and (6) information and communication technologies, i.e., the theory and practice of their role in current social life.

The proposed model for curriculum design considers aspects that are usually only partially considered in practice. However, they are currently gaining relevance in view of the literacy of future communicators entering an increasingly more global and demanding field.

Keywords:

Journalism, curricular design, higher education institutions.