Curriculum update to enhance professional profiles: is it necessary for the sustainability of communication careers?

Abstract

The digital context in which communication professions develop has boosted the diversity of professional profiles in recent years, challenging higher education institutions to innovate their offerings through their curricula. How significant have these changes been? Are Ecuadorian universities really innovating their curricula, their graduate profiles? These are precisely the objectives of this research: to know how universities have made curricular adjustments to their communication careers and to identify how curricular updates have impacted on the redefinition of professional profiles in communication and journalism. As methodology, the study applies a comparative and documentary analysis of the careers of five private universities, considering the academic offer registered in the Higher Education Council (CES), in 2018 and 2024.  The findings establish that, on the one hand, not all universities have made adjustments or curricular updates to their academic offerings in line with the reality of the labor market and, on the other hand, that the challenge of aligning academic offerings with labor demand has led other universities to diversify their modalities to remain in force or to close careers definitively. The research also sets the tone (discussion) to establish new hypotheses, which constitutes a challenge for research on the evolution of the professional profiles of communication, the professional competencies demanded by the occupational field of communication, but also on the versatility of the professional profile, from the point of view of the labor market.