Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Arts and Humanities

Journalistic Texts

The Media Landscape

We live in a society where raw information, technical advances, and competition among media outlets are the reasons we are so well-informed. The model of the journalistic message chosen by the issuer, the available channels, and the target audience determine the nature and formal characteristics of the articles.

Information and Media Transmitters

The most important transmitters include:

• Radio: Uses an auditory code and is the quickest medium. Technology allows for the instantaneous transmission of facts and direct intervention. It utilizes simple language supported by intonation and linguistic elements. Information is usually brief and repetitive, often accompanied by opinions.
• Television: While it offers the

Linguistic Registers

Linguistic registers vary based on context and formality:

• Informal/Colloquial: General theme, daily use, oral channel, subjective intentionality, low formality. Often involves discussion and avoidance of known roots, colloquialisms. Generally denotative of language.
• Formal Standard: Generally oral or written, objective, medium to high formality. Avoids colloquialisms. Denotative language.
  • Written: Newspapers, signs, notices, informative texts.
  • Oral: News media, etc.
• Scientific/Technical: Specialized, written or oral, objective, high enunciative level. Uses symbols, jargon (monosemantic terms), and roots (Greek or Latin elements) or Anglicisms. Denotative language only.
  • Written: Journal articles, technical reports, theses.
  • Oral:

The Mass Media

The mass media are systems through which information is transmitted to a wide audience.

The most traditional forms include print, radio, and television.

The three main functions of the media are to inform, entertain, and provide opinion.

1) The Press

It is the oldest form of media. In Spain, it emerged in the 18th century.

The Language of the Press

• The written word: Journalistic texts must be clear, easily understandable, and attractive to interest the recipient.
• The image: Written information is supplemented by images such as photographs, graphics, and maps.
• Design elements: Great importance is attached to color, size, and typeface.

2) The Radio

Radio produces and transmits acoustic messages via electromagnetic waves. It was born at the... Continue reading "Mass Media Evolution and Communication Systems" »

Understanding Visual Perception

Visual perception is the process by which an individual transforms and interprets sensory information to understand the surrounding world.

The Principle of Equilibrium

Equilibrium is a state in visual composition where elements are balanced, creating a sense of stability and rest.

Symmetry in Design

Symmetry is a type of visual equilibrium achieved through the balanced distribution of elements in a visual field. There are three main types:

• Bilateral Symmetry: The arrangement of elements is the same on both sides of an imaginary central axis.
• Radial Symmetry: Elements are arranged around a central point, which can be visible or hidden.
• Relative Symmetry (Asymmetry): Elements are arranged on both sides of an axis but are

Features of the Esperpento

The Esperpento. The word "grotesque" was popularly used with meanings of "extravagance" and "ugliness." Valle-Inclán (VI) uses it to refer to his theater. The esperpento is defined given the situation of the characters, unable to reach the height of tragedy, and how ridiculous they are in their situation.

The theory about the new genre appears in scene XII. In it, the main character says, "Our tragedy is not a tragedy." Tragedy is a genre too noble for the surrounding landscape. And from the impossibility of tragedy comes the *esperpento*. The nature of this *aesthetic deformans* is illustrated with reference to the concave mirrors that decorated the facade of a shop on Cat Street in Madrid.

In an interview in 1928,... Continue reading "Valle-Inclán's Esperpento: Features and Analysis" »

19th Century Literary and Philosophical Movements

Positivism: Knowledge Through Observation

Positivism is a way of thinking that seeks rational explanations for everything, meaning knowledge is acquired through observation and experimentation.

Experimentalism: The Scientific Prerequisite

Experimentalism is a method of study that believes experimentation is a prerequisite in any scientific analysis.

Realism: Reflecting 19th Century Society

Realism consisted of a movement that developed in the second half of the 19th century, characterized by the attempt to reflect the society of the time in literary works.

Key Characteristics of Realism

• The novel is imposed as the primary genre.
• Writers maintain objectivity.
• Focus on plausible, sober, and contemporary

Perceptual Records and Constancy

Human perception involves several records that maintain stability despite sensory changes:

• Size: Refers to the invariable size things have in our mind, although they vary from their size in reality.
• Constancy of Form: The apparent shape of objects is maintained from any angle from which they are contemplated.
• Proof of Albedo or Brightness: The sensation of brightness remains unchanged from the surface of an object. One should not confuse brightness with luminance.
• Color: Although the spectral composition of lights illuminating a target varies, it will still appear to be the same color.

The Origins of Gestalt Theory

Originating in Germany (1910) with Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka, Gestalt theory resumed... Continue reading "Principles of Visual Perception and Gestalt Theory" »

Romanticism is a cultural and political movement that originated in Germany and the UK in the late eighteenth century. It emerged as a revolutionary reaction against the rationalism of the Enlightenment and Classicism, prioritizing feelings. Its key feature is the break with classical tradition, which was based on a stereotypical set of rules.

Symbolism: An Artistic Movement

Symbolism was one of the most important artistic movements of the late nineteenth century, originating in France and Belgium. In a literary manifesto published in 1886, Jean defined this new style as "enemy of education, recitation, false sensitivity and objective description." A symbol is a visible representation of an idea, with features associated with a socially accepted... Continue reading "Romanticism and Symbolism: Artistic Movements and Literary Concepts" »

Understanding Literary Description

The description is a text type that is transmitted as a representation of something or someone.

Types of Realistic Description

• Description of people: This can be physical (prosopography), psychic (ethopoeia), or a combination of both (portrait).
• Description of animals: Detailing the traits and characteristics of creatures.
• Description of a process: It consists of the presentation of the stages of a general fact or event.

Literature and a New Mentality

During the 14th and 15th centuries, there were profound changes in the Iberian Peninsula that changed the conception of the feudal world and led to a new mentality. This change was influenced especially by the Black Plague. Artistic references to the appearance of skeletons... Continue reading "Literary Description and the Evolution of La Celestina" »

Defining Catalan Modernisme

Modernisme is a cultural and artistic movement from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that spanned all areas of art. It is understood as the will to transform Catalan culture into a modern, national culture. Modernists believed that Catalan culture would not regain the originality it lost to Castilian patterns during the Decadence, which were also behind the rest of Europe. Therefore, they revolted against Spanish culture and the Renaixença (the Catalan Revival), especially the ideas of Romanticism, which they considered stale and conservative. They declared themselves partisans of Realism and Naturalism.

The movement represented a rupture or confrontation between the artist and society—an act of... Continue reading "Catalan Modernisme: A Cultural and Artistic Revolution" »