M.A. Course Catalog
Summer Term 2022

In the lecture, we will depart from engaging with a theoretical controversy related to ‘development’, touching modernization and dependency as well as post-development and decolonial theories. We discuss various diagnosis related to the ecological crisis, the idea of sustainable development, as well as recent strategies for ecological modernization and alternative visions for a socioecological change.

The course counts as a lecture for Module 2. More

This course introduces students to the main theoretical concepts and the major empirical research questions in the areas of gender, politics and communication. It addresses fundamental questions in comparative politics and communication research from the perspective of gender differences in Latin America and confronts students with important questions of causal inference in quantitative empirical-analytical research.

The course counts as a seminar for Module 1. More

This course counts towards module 4. More

Diasporas destabilize traditional fixed notions of culture, identity, belonging, home, community, territory, place and nation-state. They need to be historically and geographically located to understand how and why their cultural practices are produced and how they have shaped transnational communities and spaces that transcend and burst national borders while challenging national identities. This course proposes a conceptual, historical and thematic exploration of diasporas and their politics of cultural expression and resistance across the Americas.

This course counts as a seminar for module 5, “knowledge focus 2”. More

Because of individual limitations, most information about the world outside is assumed to be acquired through the media (Luhmann, 1996). Thus, many of our daily decisions and behaviors may be shaped by what we receive from them. This seminar introduces into selected media effects approaches and thus into central aspects of communication science. In order to take into account the importance of contexts in research as well as the changing media system, the seminar selectively deals with research in Ibero-America on the one hand and with the impact of digital media content on the other.

This course counts as a seminar for module 5, “communication and society”. More

This course examines diverse theories, methodologies, and the most relevant current debates regarding human migration from an interdisciplinary and transnational approach. Students will become familiar with different discipline-based theories and methodologies to investigate human migration and central analytical concepts in migration studies. In addition to canonical and alternative readings from sociology, anthropology, history, demography, socio-legal studies, human geography, socio-linguistics and Latinx Studies, throughout the course, we will also examine qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of this complex and multi-dimensional phenomena.

This course counts as a seminar for module 6. More

There is wide agreement that climate change will unevenly affect social groups according to their geographic location, to inequalities related to class, race/ethnicity, citizenship, gender, age, and formal education. In this seminar, we will depart from the assumption that society-nature relationships are characterized by (global) inequalities and that such a perspective is necessary to understand how both environmental and climate change, climate change mitigation, and environmental policies affect the political and socio-economic situations of different social groups. We will discuss conceptual work on social inequalities and inequalities related to human-environmental change in the context of asymmetric South-North relationships and transnational entanglements; and from disciplines and research fields such as human geography, environmental sociology, environmental history, development politics, peasant studies and (feminist) political ecology.

This course counts as a seminar for module 5, “knowledge focus 2”. More

Latin America is the most unequal region on the planet, and for this reason, despite the fact that most of the countries are middle-income, it has very high levels of poverty. The course will first present the definitions and methods for measuring poverty and inequality, and then provide a quantification of the data and the main explanatory factors for the persistence of these phenomena and their socio-economic implications. Finally, it addresses the debate on the policies needed to tackle these problems.

This course counts towards module 7. More

The Covid pandemic has demonstrated an increased public debate about so called ‘fake news’. As disinformation can harm individual-level behavior and society-level decisions based on false premises, a comprehensive understanding about what ‘fake news’ are is essential as never before. This seminar firstly aims to advance the understanding about this communication phenomenon from the perspective of communication science. The seminar secondly wants to introduce into practical research on digital disinformation. Therefore, the students will split into small research groups after an introduction phase and work on self-derived questions around disinformation in Ibero-America independently. In this second phase, the practical will link with the contents of the Master seminar “Communication and public spheres in Ibero-America” and will take into consideration selected theoretical approaches to understand the features and effects of disinformation (e.g., narratives, news factors, online civic interventions).

This course counts as a practical for module 7. More

El curso de máster Gestión de la comunicación social e intercultural, de naturaleza digital y desarrollado de forma colaborativa, constituye el núcleo del proyecto CS@Ibero-America. Tras el fin del mismo el curso forma parte del plan de estudios de tres titulaciones: el Máster en Communication and Society in Ibero-America del HCIAS, el Doble Máster Internacional en Traducción Especializada y Tecnologías de la Traducción de la Universidad de Heidelberg y la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile y del Máster en Comunicación Social del Instituto de la Comunicación e Imágen de la Universidad de Chile.

El curso está orientado a la enseñanza y la investigación; su concepción metódico-didáctica promueve el perfil de investigación de los estudiantes mediante la realización de trabajos individuales y proyectos en grupo. Se les enseñará a desarrollar métodos de investigación y estrategias de resolución de problemas tanto por sí mismos como de forma colaborativa en un entorno virtual.

This course counts for module 7. More