Revisiting a debate: conflicts and convergence on communication and information

Abstract

This article is about the memory of the Post Graduate and Communications’ Program of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), as part of an ongoing debate on two fields of knowledge: Communications and Science of Information. Originally published in 2003, this article opens up the questioning on the paradox of the epistemological autonomy about the above referred fields, and the occurrence of its political and institutional dependency. In twenty years, the consolidation of PPGCOM/UFRGS responded to criticisms of successive evaluations and questionings in its concentration areas - Communication and Information. Both resistance and experience may actually contribute to the debate on its intrinsic interdisciplinary character of those sciences, according to the 2010-2020 National Plan for the Post Graduation Studies. Thus, in this direction this article’s rewriting is based on historical and conceptual perspectives, which enable the identification of those three dimensions of Communication and information’s Interdisciplinarity: dependency, mediation and intervention.