Ruth S. Contreras Espinosa


Universitat de Vic-Universitat Central de Catalunya

Professor of the Department of Communication. Editor of the Obra Digital magazine.


ruth.contreras@uvic.cat

orcid.org/0000-0002-9699-9087







Abstract:

Communication is a symbolic and impersonal, expressive and personal language. In both cases, communication works to achieve an understanding between individuals that are the most basic part of the culture. Its function is to achieve and maintain an understanding among individuals who live in society. Everything complements each other, since communication functions as a socializing “whole” or as an integrating element that operates in two dimensions.


Keywords


Communication, Culture, Research, Society.


Resumen:

La comunicación es un lenguaje simbólico e impersonal, expresivo y personal. En ambos casos, la comunicación trabaja para lograr un entendimiento entre los individuos que son la parte más básica de la cultura. Su función es lograr y mantener la comprensión entre los individuos que viven en sociedad y fomentar. Todo se complementa entre sí, ya que la comunicación funciona como un “todo” socializador o como un elemento integrador que opera en dos dimensiones.


Palabras clave


Comunicación, Cultura, Investigación, Sociedad.


Resumo:

A comunicação é uma linguagem simbólica e impessoal, expressiva e pessoal. Nos dois casos, a comunicação trabalha para alcançar um entendimento entre os indivíduos que são a parte mais básica da cultura. Sua função é alcançar e manter a compreensão entre os indivíduos que vivem na sociedade. Tudo se complementa, pois, a comunicação funciona como um “todo” socializante ou como um elemento integrador que opera em duas dimensões.


Palavras-chave


Comunicação, Cultura, Pesquisa, Sociedade.






The eighteenth issue of the Obra Digital magazine provides the reader with different views on communication and culture. Communication is a symbolic and impersonal language, for example, hieroglyphics. It is expressive and personal like art. In both cases, these forms of communication work to achieve an understanding between individuals that are the most basic part of the culture. Its social function seems to be to achieve and maintain understanding among those individuals who live in a society and foster cultural solidarity between them. It could be said that this social function contrasts with the competition that seeks to achieve an orderly distribution and division of labor among individuals in a society. Everything complements each other, since communication functions as a socializing “whole” or as an integrating element that operates in two dimensions. On the one hand, it serves to provide cultural features and expand its cultural area within which social relationships can exist.

On the other hand, communication focuses on bringing common understanding and dispersing new ideas that inevitably arise in the acculturation process. The diffusion and acculturation processes seem to take place in the conditions that arise and spread the news. It is characteristic of news to circulate until the message is understood or that the disseminated images create an effect on local cultures.

To a large extent, the authors of the articles presented here seek to reflect on communication and culture and put their reflections to the readers' consideration.

The monograph consists of eight articles. In the first text entitled Educational Digital Games: Tensioning the Production Process, the authors William de Souza Santos and Lynn Rosalina Gama Alves, present an investigation with an exploratory character that seeks to discuss what elements should be contemplated in digital educational games, as well as its levels of importance. The results of this research revealed the dichotomy between developers, teachers and players of what should be a digital educational game and what characteristics should be prioritized.

Athena Alchazidu, presents an interesting reflection on Globalization and oral traditions: Some Remarks on Indigenous Orality in the Amazon. Indigenous orality represents an important part in the daily life of the Amerindian communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. It is important to see in this phenomenon a symptom of serious threats that can lead to the extinction of these indigenous languages. According to recent research, several languages spoken in the communities of Ecuador are considered to be in danger of extinction. Effective prevention can be promoted by academic projects focused on encouraging indigenous speakers of all generations to use the language regularly in ordinary situations and promoting indigenous languages to become the language of instruction used in official educational institutions.

Culture, heritage and tourism as study fields for communication: a systematic review of recent Hispanic literature is the text presented by Valeriano Piñeiro-Naval and Ricardo Morais. Communication research is interdisciplinary in nature, with very diverse thematic interests and has grown exponentially. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to observe what space they occupy and how the fields of culture, heritage and tourism are addressed in various articles published in Hispanic communication magazines during the period from 2013-2017. Methodologically, the techniques of bibliometry and meta-research were combined to address aspects such as authorship or financing of works and identify the objects of study, theories or methodologies used in the 120 manuscripts that formed the sample of this work.

The author Karen Julissa Barahona Posada presents us, The representation of women as a cultural historical subject in two literary works: "No me agarran viva" by Claribel Alegría and Darwin J. Flakoll and "La mujer habitada" by Gioconda Belli. In Nicaragua and El Salvador, the revolutions of the 1970s and 1980s ended the era of military dictatorships and women redefined their political identity through revolutionary participation. Gioconda Belli reflected the Sandinismo in her works and in La mujer habitada, which marks the role of the Nicaraguan during the revolution. In the same way, Claribel Alegría represented the Salvadoran revolutionary woman in her testimonial novel No me agarran viva. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate how the works rewrite history to vindicate women as a historical subject in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

The text entitled Notes on gender, technology and videogames, seeks to investigate the digital gaps generated by gender hierarchies that affect the way women develop, disseminate and appropriate technologies. To do this, it shows some relationships between gender and technology to get closer to the universe of games. In addition, it includes the concept "videogame" as a boys thing, to show how technologies have gradually distanced themselves from the world of girls. Today, the reverse path is being taken by a new generation of women who create initiatives and projects related to videogames not only in Brazil but throughout the world. This article is presented by Renata Jéssica Galdino and Tarcisio Torres Silva.

Finally, in the monographic part, Innovation conceived as resistance in Design: a twist in the concept in contrast to the guidelines of the Oslo Manual, aims to explore the concept of innovation through the design case of The Shoe that Grows, a type of sandal of adjustable size designed to adapt to children living in extreme poverty. The case attracts attention because it meets a human need and uses design and business strategies to democratize access to footwear. Through a review of the literature, taking the Oslo manual as its main contribution, it presents a shift in the concept of innovation that can be understood as a criticism. Its authors are Cecília Oliveira Boanova and Raquel Paiva Godinho.

I do not want to close this text without inviting our readers to consult the two miscellaneous articles that make up our eighteen issue. The author Enrique Nuñez-Mussa presents How to verify without experts and reach the big leagues: University fact checking of the presidential debate of Chile in 2017. The article presents the teaching methodology applied in a fact checking project to verify the presidential campaign and televised debate of the 2017 elections in Chile during a journalism undergraduate course. The design and development of this project is explained. Its journalistic and learning results are analyzed, among which is been shortlisted in a professional excellence award. It exposes the assessment made by the students of their learning when verifying the public discourse of the authorities and their contribution to democracy in the role of watchdog.

In Master's degree programs in Mathematics in Brazil: an application of networks to characterize their titles, the authors Inácio de Sousa Fadigas, Trazíbulo Henrique, Marcos Grilo and Hernane Borges de Barros Pereira, present a network analysis of the titles of various master's degree projects in mathematics of Brazil. The analysis uses semantic networks of degrees (SND) characterized qualitatively and quantitatively. For this, 41 training courses were selected and a click network approach was used, in which the words of the links are connected. Louvain's method (algorithm) was applied to detect communities of words. The networks were characterized and grouped by region and geographic area, which led to inferences from regions based on regularity or not of word groups.

We believe this publication will be beneficial for professionals and students. I hope you find in each of the articles a new motivation to expand knowledge about communication and culture, whatever your context and area of action.