COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE – PROGRAMME SUBJECT IN PROGRAMMES FOR SPECIALIZATION IN GENERAL STUDIES (KKM1-01)

Communication and culture 1

The main subject area comprises different aspects of the concept of culture and the relationship between culture, society and the individual, sub-cultures and norms. Culture is understood as communicative context, both at the situational level and the level of society. Linguistic, textual, literary and aesthetic theories and methods as tools for interpretation, analysis and assessment are all covered by the main subject area. It looks at how historical, social and cultural circumstances create requirements for texts and communication, and how texts and communication help create, maintain or challenge these circumstances.

Communication and culture 2

The main subject area deals with key forms of understanding and methods of analysis within culture and communication. It deals with what takes place in our encounter with cultures, and considers the ways that culture changes. The main subject area includes the phenomena tradition, modernity and postmodernity. The main subject area also encompasses general text theories, such as rhetoric, discourse analysis and narrative theory.

Communication and culture 3

The main subject area deals with how communication is affected by cultural factors such as national culture, group affiliation, ethnicity, gender and professional and occupational background. The main subject area encompasses individualization, group formation and globalization. Central to the main subject area are underlying cultural values in various forms of communication, and communicative challenges facing those with different cultural backgrounds. General communication theories, such as semiotics, pragmatics and conversation analysis, are also covered by the main subject area.

Communication and culture 1

The main subject area comprises contemporary texts related to different cultures’ modes of thought and patterns of behaviour. The concept of text is understood as something broad and multifarious. It includes oral and written texts, but also composite texts that include non-verbal forms of expression, such as images, music and graphics.

Communication and culture 2

The main subject area deals with the way texts are constructed at different levels, with their individual characteristics in special situations, and with genre norms of different cultures. It also deals with how a society consists of different text cultures with dissimilar tasks, such as informing, politics, the governing of society, religion, art and entertainment. Furthermore, the main subject area deals with how norms for production and assessment of texts is developed and altered in various text cultures. The comparison of texts from a variety of text cultures is also covered by the main subject area.

Communication and culture 1

The main subject area deals with oral, written and non-verbal communicative processes, with an emphasis on interaction between individuals and within and between groups and organizations. It includes communication patterns in different national or cultural communities and addresses the question of what happens when participants from various communities communicate with each other. The main subject area is also concerned with how different media help create opportunities and limitations for interaction.

Communication and culture 3

The main subject area deals with communicative processes in social interaction in a broad range of situations, and with how these processes relate to various kinds of activities and genres. Furthermore, it deals with how communication creates and maintains social relationships that are characterized by solidarity and power, intimacy and distance. Non-verbal communication related to verbal communication and the media’s role in communication and interaction is also covered by the main subject area.