Among communication and social sciences

This article focuses on the crossroads where communications research and reflection meet the social sciences, particularly sociology. An overview of this topic is undertaken through an examination of texts whose authors seek for an answer about the nature of communication as something distinct from the strictly social, and thus an autonomous field for the organization of meaning, or rather if sociology finds a meaning to the social world of communication. Different approaches are glimpsed according to historical contexts and particular circumstances modified throughout time. A selection of themes is developed, in which interdisciplinarity is essential for explanations and projections. On the first place, cultural change and the new situation of the social subject, which affects his plans and possibilities in the midst of new values. That is to say, to what extent the organization of personal life is affected by work flexibility and professional innovation, so as the positions of talent, memory and learning. On the second place the debate about popular and erudite culture, as seen in Mario Vargas Llosa's book La civilizacion del espectaculo, which puts at stake the mass media considering them as 'deviant teachers or almighty promoters of ignorance'. On the third place, the public/private sphere relations debate as seen from social history. This includes changes generated by the mass media when they burst into private life, and the imperaive need of the social subject of showing himself and making a public performance of his/her private life. Finally, contemporary debates about technologies, as contemplated by authors which, from philosophy, cultural criticism, neurosciences and communication, try to evaluate the effects of digital technologies upon cognitive processes, subjectivity and memory.