In the age of communication, professionals are true agents of change. Jobs that did not exist before are emerging and becoming indispensable. Today’s businesses are undergoing profound transformations that require new experts in interpersonal, human, and strategic skills: communication, marketing, and management.
During the informational meetings held in July 2020, the academic coordinators discussed the challenges facing the field and the opportunities the profession offers.
“Digital Content is a degree program that offers the best of all worlds,” said its coordinator, Ana Laura Pérez, MBA. “It’s very much a product of our times,” she summarized.
"This is the best time to study Digital Content Communication," he says, because:
- “We live in a world that cuts across all areas;
- which is cross-platform;
- which is mobile;
- "in a world where anyone can create content, but where pursuing a college degree in communication involves turning that content creation into a professional endeavor."
"In this program, you learn how to create content 'that is increasingly engaging,' how to use audience measurement tools, and how to develop content 'that recognizes that human beings are fundamentally transmedia,'" he concluded.
Why Journalism considered one of the professions that will continue to exist in an automated world? Pérez, who coordinates the department, explained: “Because, increasingly, the quality of the information we consume, the relevance of that information to our decision-making processes, and knowing that the content we’re looking at is truly reliable and credible, is becoming more and more important in this world where we’re inundated with competition for attention.”
The academic coordinator of the Audiovisual, Mag. Gerardo Castelli, summarized that the challenge is no longer access to the media—as it was when he himself studied at ORT, where “what we wanted most was to grab a camera and go out filming”—but rather the challenge lies in thinking: “in understanding how a narrative is constructed, how I can arrange the images to convey something.”
One of the most important features of Uruguay’s audiovisual industry, Castelli noted, is its ability to create content for a global audience thanks to “excellent conditions,” such as highly skilled technicians, top-of-the-line professional equipment, and a variety of locations located close to one another.
Meanwhile, the Business Communication focuses on human interaction: “Our work is constantly about building strategic relationships,” said Professor Virginia Silva.
From large for-profit companies, corporations, and multinationals to small businesses, as well as political parties and social movements, Business Communication is a field “whose defining characteristics include openness and dynamism.”
Héctor Bajac, the School’s academic secretary, emphasized that now is the best time to study Communication because we are living “in a hyper-connected society, with new communication platforms that we use all the time, amid the explosion of social media and the impact it has on organizations”—all of which boil down to a single goal: to manage communication professionally.
The Bachelor's Degree in Communicationhas most up-to-date curriculum in Uruguay. Bajac noted that “you don’t have to wait until the end of your degree to start practicing.”
To explain how the orientation is structured Advertising and Marketing, he reviewed the course modules: a theoretical core that enables a deep understanding of communication, a methodological core, and a creative core, mastery of language, applied or instrumental knowledge, historical, political, and social context, marketing, and Medialab, in addition to elective courses throughout the entire program. The four years culminate in the final project: a strategic research and marketing plan for a real-world case—a real brand or specific company—or in the academic format—where, instead of creating a plan, students analyze what a brand did during a specific period.