The Interdisciplinary field of Information and Communication:
a preliminary study on the current structure of iSchools
Fernanda Ribeiro (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Portugal)
Armando Malheiro Da Silva (Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto, Portugal)
Abstract
This paper aims to analyze the origin and evolution of the Information and Communication Sciences that were born in France in the second half of the 20th century, and which were implemented in academic context after 1972, under the impulse of a group of researchers of which Roland Barthes, Robert Escarpit and Jean Meyriat were the most representative. Their integrated perspective for this field of study achieved concrete results in France, but their influence in other countries is not really known.
In this article the authors intend to investigate how the French model of Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication (SIC) has influenced the implementation of an integrated field of knowledge. Moreover, the authors worked on bringing together information, communication and technological mediation, in the scope of iSchools, and looked for epistemological evidence to support such an implementation.
Keywords: Information and Communication Sciences; iSchools’ training programs; French theorization