This subject aims to develop student critical thinking on central themes and authors in communication studies. Students thus gain an understanding of the centrality of the media in cultural production and in democratic culture alongside knowledge on the relationship between technological innovation and the media. The study program thus identifies the periods of continuity and discontinuity in the evolution of the media as well as the different relations established between the media and receivers in different periods. This allows students to develop skills that enable them to analyse contemporary media systems, in particular the challenges and opportunities faced by each medium and by media systems as a whole.