Advanced Diploma in Media Education and Political Communication

• CLASS 1. Why is media education necessary?
  Teacher: Pablo Iglesias Turrión
  
  In media-saturated societies, media power is the most relevant ideological, cultural, and political force. Media literacy is an essential set of skills for active citizenship. In this session, we will explore the keys to critical media analysis and work with the most important techniques of contemporary political communication.
  
  
• CLASS 2. Information between two war propagandas
  Teacher: Inna Afinogenova
  
  How can we maintain a critical perspective at a time when information is more instrumentalized and manipulated than ever before? Today, information is yet another weapon in armed conflicts. In this session, we highlight the value of peace in the face of prevailing bellicose rhetoric that forces audiences to take sides in conflict situations.
  
  
  
• CLASS 3. Co-opt, empty, repress: articulation of the reactionary offensive
  Teacher: Anita Fuentes
  
  In this session, we analyze how certain social demands born from emancipatory movements—from “woke” to “gender ideology,” “cancel culture,” “multiculturalism,” “empowerment,” and “self-care”—have been co-opted in the public debate, becoming empty slogans and losing their transformative capacity. We will address this drift as a two-pronged process: on the one hand, their instrumentalization by the right and far right to delegitimize social demands; on the other, their absorption by neoliberalism, which transforms them into market tools without altering the power relations that these terms were intended to challenge. Using examples from media and social networks, we will examine how these processes of co-optation are articulated through contemporary media infrastructures and contribute to consolidating fertile ground for neo-reactionary thought, whose response is no longer symbolic integration but a shift toward sophisticated forms of control and repression. We will conclude with a creative and comparative exercise in which students will share cases from their countries to identify patterns, differences, and possible responses.
  
  
  
• CLASS 4. Digital Utopias: Media as Organizing Devices
  Teacher: Ekaitz Cancela
  
  In the last decade, US technology corporations have renewed the modern promise of progress through platforms that privatize, deregulate, and commodify all spheres of life. These digital infrastructures not only concentrate global economic and political power but also reduce communication tools to a single use: individual and disorganized consumption. In response to this extractive model, radical left-wing media have experimented with alternative technologies that transform communication into collective organization: devices capable of mobilizing territories, training political cadres, and constructing visions of more habitable worlds. This session will first analyze the logics that underpin the hegemony of digital capitalism and then examine cases—especially in the Global South—of radical journalistic and technological projects that have created democratic, sustainable, and solidarity-based infrastructures, challenging the premise that technology should serve private profit rather than collective emancipation.

• CLASS 5. Strategies for analyzing media discourse
  Teacher: Manu Levin
  
  This class will consist of a practical application of different techniques of media discourse analysis, both quantitative (content analysis) and qualitative (frame analysis, priming, agenda-setting, etc.), to specific examples of content present in Spanish and Latin American media.
  
  
• CLASS 6. Argentina: The troll president has those who resist him
  Teacher: Marco Teruggi
  Argentina is an emblematic case of how what we can generically call "hate speech" was systematically and deliberately constructed within certain media groups, fueling internal political conflict to the point of poisoning it. One of its political manifestations was the presidency of Javier Milei, beginning in 2023, who brought to the head of state the practice of constructing enemies and calling for their persecution, particularly against politicians, journalists, and protesters.
  Over the last decade, a network of print, radio, and streaming media outlets has been built to counter this process. Collectively, with their diverse origins and levels of community engagement, they have allowed for the development of discourses and a repertoire of collective actions aimed at confronting the president and his media allies in the media, as well as contesting the central battleground chosen by Milei: the cultural battle.
  
  
• CLASS 7. News programs and talk shows to question power
  Teacher: Laura Arroyo
  
  In media-saturated societies, political disputes take place in the media. If anything has become clear with the systematic rise of the far right, which forms part of the reactionary international, it is that they have understood the moment and have been effective in this cultural battle from their stronghold: the media. They do so through their own media ecosystem (reactionary media power), as well as by placing their desired issues on the public agenda, using both their affiliated media outlets and gaining access to media outlets that supposedly oppose them but which, in reality, yield ground to the discursive strategies of the current far right. In this context, we on the left have a duty to develop discursive and performative strategies that are capable not only of breaking through from within the media power structure but also of constructing discourses that resonate with the prevailing common sense.
  
  
• CLASS 8. Combat tactics in corporate television for left-wing voices
  Teacher: Pablo Echenique
  
  This session will address, based on the instructor's more than 10 years of experience in this field, the discursive and communicative tactics necessary for a left-wing voice to perform with relative success—and with a well-defined political objective—in a venue that is not conducive to such a purpose: a private television program. It will also address the perennial strategic question of whether or not it is advisable to participate in such spaces.
  
  
• CLASS 9. Feminist and anti-war journalism
  Teacher: Daniela Pastrana
  
  In this session, we will analyze how feminist and anti-war journalism can act as a vaccine against contemporary forms of war and violence. This approach contrasts with traditional journalism, heir to the 19th-century Anglo-Saxon school, which still predominates in most media outlets and remains the model taught in many schools in the Americas. In contrast to this tradition, examples like Canal Red's journalism offer a renewed perspective adapted to the challenges of the 21st century.
  
  
• CLASS 10. Transformative narratives in sport and the heart
  Teacher: Irene Zugasti
  
  Sports and social information and communication, respectively, are often treated as a specialized segment of the profession or dismissed as a minor branch within the field, and also within communication studies, media analysis, and content analysis. However, media outlets dedicated to such popular topics as sports—especially soccer—or social or celebrity gossip are not only a robust media and cultural industry, but also a powerful tool for politicization and the construction of discourses and identities. In this session, we will address the role and impact of the sports press and social commentary as communicative and political devices, and the strategies for creating and constructing counter-hegemonic narratives in these spaces.
  
  
• CLASS 11. Soap operas and series as popular and pop sentimental education
  Teacher: Omar Rincón
  
  Melodrama and popular culture are where Latin Americans tell their stories through music, soap operas, food, dances, and parties. Popular television, the kind that features soap operas, reflects much more reality than news programs and serves as the "university" of our emotional, ethical, and political education. The same is true for new generations who live immersed in series and streaming platforms, where we are sold pop capitalism and the idealized vision of "yopitalism." In this essay-class, we will analyze the subjectivities, values, ethics, and politics inscribed in soap operas and series—something akin to the pre-modernities of rural life and the postmodernities of globalization.

• CLASS 12. Seven impossible things before breakfast: challenges of media literacy in times of Bukelism
  Teacher: Amparo Marroquín Parducci
  
  Alice laughed. “There’s no point in trying,” she said. “You can’t believe in impossible things.”
  “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day.”
  Wow, sometimes I've believed up to six impossible things before breakfast.”
  
  - Lewis Carroll
  
  For the past decade, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has positioned himself as one of the most successful practitioners of political communication manuals. In fact, five years into his presidency, his approval rating, according to polls, hovers between 80 and 90%, making him the most popular president in the Americas. Bukele's popularity strategy is based, among other things, on disseminating a series of narratives seasoned with false data, heavy emotional appeals, and rumors that are more wishful thinking than reality. How is it possible to cultivate media literacy in a country where a populist leader and his communications team constantly seek to seduce all audiences? Educating audiences in El Salvador has required us to make an effort to imagine the impossible, as the Queen told Alice. This session will present for discussion the concrete strategies—both successful and unsuccessful—that we have developed with a team of professors, researchers, and young students, in a country experiencing a highly successful media blitz.
  
  
• CLASS 13. The Latin America Base: a toolbox for resisting corporate journalism
  Teacher: Estefanía Veloz
  
  In Latin America, headlines don't inform; they pronounce judgment. Behind every chosen word—"dictator" or "president," "protest" or "vandalism," "embargo" or "blockade"—lies an editorial decision that often responds more to ownership interests than to journalistic rigor. In this session, I'll share how we at La Base América Latina work to dismantle these frameworks and transform analysis into education and resistance. Using cases from the region, we'll review our method for detecting strategic omissions, double standards based on the political affiliation of the government in power, the amplification of voices with conflicts of interest, and the use of language as a tool for ideological control. We'll examine examples where similar events receive radically different interpretations depending on whether they occur in Venezuela or Peru, Cuba or Ecuador. We'll also look at how US media outlets that set the agenda for our countries operate with selective leaks, anonymous sources, and privileged access as currency between media power and political-economic power. They're pissing on us and the media says it's raining: that's the premise. The class provides concrete tools for reading between the lines, following the money behind the news, and developing your own narratives in the battle for common sense.
  
  
• CLASS 14. David vs. Goliath, or how to create an independent media outlet in the land of conservative restoration
  Teacher: Alejandra Valle
  
  We have had to reinvent ourselves in step with the country's social changes. The same country that awoke six and a half years ago and cried out for "The Voice of the Leftovers" voted not only against the changes that could have led it down the path of a social welfare state, the end of the welfare state, and the de-Pinochetization (a concept coined by Diamela Eltit), but also chose the most conservative candidate to guide its next steps. José Antonio Kast's victory clearly represents a triumph of the conservative restoration in this ongoing culture war. "The Voice of the Leftovers" was born out of the social uprising of October 2019. In the streets, people were protesting against years of abuse and extreme inequality. The directors of the major television channels rushed to Sebastián Piñera's call and stopped showing the large-scale protests, focusing instead on the looting and violence of some demonstrators, without mentioning the human rights violations committed by state agents. When we did a Facebook Live on November 13th with two television personalities who had been fired for their comments supporting the social uprising (I had been fired a few weeks earlier for exposing police abuses), more than a million people watched. We couldn't stop, we thought, and we haven't since… Even though it's not easy to keep going. We've already survived a pandemic and perhaps the worst defeat for the left and progressivism: the victory of the "Reject" option in the upcoming constitutional referendum. Meanwhile, the battle of David versus Goliath continues every day, and we've already been resisting for six years.
  
  
• CLASS 15. Media effects and political affects: contemporary grammars of cultural sovereignty
  Teacher: Daiana Bruzzone
  
  Communication and culture are fundamental strategic resources for the sovereignty of peoples. However, the current media system operates under logics of individualization and reputation economies that deepen social fragmentation and deploy affective violence: grammars of hate, disinformation, and polarization that erode democratic collective projects. In this class, we invite you to dismantle the mechanisms that transform emotions into tools of political control and explore the power of popular narratives in the battle for cultural sovereignty. How can public and community media overcome the trap of polarization to imagine new political horizons? What agendas are we building from cultural resistance to manage the commons? How can we represent the interests of the majority through grammars where art and humor become alternatives to the logics that block collective organization?
  
  
• CLASS 16. Closing Meeting
  Teacher: Coordination and tutors

You must be registered in the CLACSO Single Registration System (SUIC) and enter your username and password. If you are not registered, click here . To access the registration form, click the "Register" button on the webpage of the Diploma program you are interested in.

Upon completion of the registration process, you will receive a confirmation in your email.

Classes will begin in April and will conclude in July 2026.

All registered participants will receive on the first day of activities the necessary instructions to access the classes, bibliography and discussion forums through the CLACSO Virtual Training Space.

Accessing and navigating the Virtual Learning Environment is very simple and user-friendly. In any case, a technical and academic support team will always be available. For inquiries, you can write to [email protected]

You must send an email with the request to [email protected] and we will send you the requested certificate as soon as possible.

Exceptional Criteria: In exceptional cases, and within the first 20 days of the start of the Advanced Diploma program, students may write to [email protected] requesting to withdraw and stating the reasons. After evaluation of the case, a response will be sent to the request. If approved, the student may resume the Advanced Diploma program if a new cohort is offered the following year. After this period has elapsed since the start of the course, no requests will be accepted.

Money paid will only be refunded in cases where the organizing institutions decide to cancel the activity. 

Yes, the advanced diploma is certified by CLACSO. The diploma will be sent digitally and is completely free of charge.

Payment can be made in one installment, by credit card or bank transfer. We also offer the option of paying in 3 installments.

Yes. There will be discounts for students belonging to CLACSO Member Centers and CLACSO Associated Centers, for CLACSO Associate Researchers, and for all those who pay within the discount period.

You can check if you belong to a member center here: 

https://www.clacso.org/institucional/centros-asociados/

The Advanced Diploma program integrates a dynamic of asynchronous and synchronous classes. Classes are primarily asynchronous. The schedule for synchronous sessions will be communicated by the Diploma coordinator at the beginning of the program, and participation in these sessions is not a prerequisite for passing the program.