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RESEARCH

Research Laboratory in Communication and Humanities (LiComH)

The Communication Degree at the Private University of Bolivia has the Research Laboratory in Communication and Humanities (LiComH), created for research, specialized training, knowledge dissemination, and the provision of advanced services in communication and humanities, responding to the challenges of the Information Society and the needs of our context.LIComH's main program is related to Bolivian film research.

Understanding the complexity of the subject of study, it is intended to restrict it, propose theoretical tools of analysis and/or reading, identify its relationship with other disciplines, with social phenomena, and with technology, as well as reveal its importance in the construction of national imaginaries.


What is LiComH?

LIComH seeks to investigate and reflect on the use of Information and Communication Technologies in the context of social phenomena. With a qualitative and transdisciplinary research approach, laboratory activities are framed in cultural studies, media analysis, political communication, perception and process studies, art theory, gender studies, and journalistic studies. Besides, LIComH seeks to contribute to the communication and humanities training of students, researchers, and teachers, encourage inter-academic dialogue, and strengthen relations with institutions that share the same research areas.


Research projects

 

Our main projects

Reconfiguration of Bolivian cinema (2000-2018)

 

This research characterized and analyzed the reconfiguration of Bolivian cinema produced from 2000 to 2017. Focused on the construction of new speeches and aesthetics, on the treatment of new themes, on the use of new technological resources for their production and distribution, in new forms of financing and marketing. It is an analysis to understand the national film industry, from a transdisciplinary perspective, taking as it shows the most relevant short films, feature films, fiction, documentaries, real action, animation films produced in the last decade.


History of Bolivian cinema. 1897-2017:

 

“De la República del Celuloide al Estado Pluricinemográfico de Bolivia: el cine boliviano realizado, 1990-2017". This historiographic paper chronologically reviews events and phenomena of great relevance to Bolivian cinema produced from 1990 to 2017, as well as performs a descriptive approach of the work of the directors and the most influential films of this period. This text is one of the four parts that make up the book History of Bolivian Cinema. 1897-2017, coordinated by Carlos D. Mesa, in which also collaborated Pedro Susz and Alfonso Gumucio Dagrón and was published by Plural Editors. In addition, the volume includes an appendix with a great amount of bibliography of all books written in the country on the subject, as well as a selection of relevant brochures and articles; a chronology from 1897-2017; technical and artistic information of the feature films made in the period and a list with a selection of relevant short films and medium-films for different reasons.​


On the relationship between sociopolitical structures and computational architecture

 

Based on certain concepts proposed by Martín Heidegger related to technology and science, as well as the notions of power in the social organization proposed by Michel Foucault in his classic text Watch and Punish and Notions about Jacques Derrida's democracy, this research makes a critical reading of the relationship between sociopolitical structures and computational architecture. Understanding that the notion of supervision and standardization has been fundamental to the socio-economic organization of contemporary society. The research aims to reveal that computational architecture, found on any electronic device, operates under the same principles of disciplinary power.

This is a project in collaboration with the UPB's ICI (Institute for Computational Intelligence).


News and prospects for the implementation of Digital Terrestrial Television in Bolivia

 

The adoption of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) in Bolivia will bring a number of challenges that have not yet been studied academically. Outlining what will happen from this transition, warning of the effects it could have on society and the business sector is fundamental to telecommunications in our country. From a technical-regulatory and audiovisual content generation perspective, this research seeks to describe the process of implementation of DTT in Bolivia and Latin America, diagnose its status, as well as the situation of radio spectrum in UHF frequencies and its prospects for use in the face of the implementation of this technology.

This project was carried out in collaboration with the Radiocommunication Laboratory of the Bolivian Private University.

Bestiary: Bolivian film database

 

Academics, researchers, and visual studies enthusiasts and, specifically, Bolivian cinema do not have a reliable and comprehensive data source that meets their information access needs. From the UPB, a possible solution is proposed: the creation of a Bolivian audiovisual database that can be accessed from the Internet. In this portal, you can find data from tapes, technical and artistic teams, photographs, links to videos, as well as catalog the relevant academic and journalistic texts that deal with topics related to national audiovisual.

This project is carried out in collaboration with the Transmedia Communication Laboratory (LCT) and the Information Technology Innovation Center for Education and Business (CITIEE)