BUILDING A DISCIPLINE. THE SETUP OF COMMUNICATION AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE IN ROMANIA

Abstract

This paper aims to shed a light on the importance of looking on the epistemological and methodological grounds of communication as a discipline in Romania in order to be able to discuss about the professionalization of the domain. We start from the widely acknowledged idea that communication is a new and emerging field, drawing its concepts, theories, and methods from diverse other fields and domains. In Romania, as well as in other former communist countries, after 1990 the changes in the political and economic situation created the premises to establish university programs in communication and to create jobs for people working in communication. All these were possible with the help of “imports” from the Western world, imports that transferred not only concepts and theories, but also the epistemological dispute and weakness of the field. This paper explores the development and the current state of communication as an academic discipline in Romania. Through an analysis of the social documents available on the University program’s website, we seek to understand the theoretical roots of the discipline of communication, as well as its current development.