An historic view of the department
As was mentioned, in 1982 the department was one of CEDES’s research programs under the title of “Culture and Ideology.” Its objective was to advance in the dissemination of knowledge about the political constitution of popular sectors by examining their own cultural values.
Together with the advent and later consolidation of the democratic government, several studies were conducted concerning the transformations that took place in the context of the Argentine political culture and in the media, particularly with respect to the obstacles) and challenges that the consolidation of the democratic government had to face.

The work carried out during this stage includes:
> Cultural policies and the reorganization of the media in the political transition;
> The role and modes of involvement of political journalism, the cinema, and literature in the process of building a collective memory;
> The analysis of diverse writing genres in politics: discourse, essay, fiction, journalism, the academic paper, among others;
> Linguistic, cultural, and operative analysis of Argentine electoral campaigns since 1983;
> Quantitative and Qualitative analysis of the cultural practices and consumption in the city of Buenos Aires and the logics that preside over the formation of diverse public;
> Television and its forms of involvement in the political process.
In 1991, the department was renamed “Social Communication
Its members, Oscar Landi, Luis Alberto Quevedo, and Ariana Vachieri developed the following lines of research:
> Comparative analyses of electoral campaigns and of political marketing;
> The new profile of the audiovisual industry after the privatizations between 1989 and 1990 and the formation of the so called ¨multimedia¨;
> Communication strategies for the production of messages and campaigns concerning social policies. Regional project including the experiences of: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Peru;
> Study program on television discourse and image based on the top rated television programs in Argentina;

In 1993, the department came to be known as “Communication and socio-political processes.” where continued with the above lines of research and also incorporated the following:
> The media and “outsiders” in Latin American politics: new kinds of leaderships that are generated from peripheral spheres into the political party system (Collor, Fujimori, etc.)

Towards the late nineties, the lines of research included:
> Bodies and looks across two centuries (sexuality, screens, and politics)
> The cultural experience. Public, industries, and policies
> Political democracy and Argentina’s integral crisis (1983-2002).