PRESENTATION

On April 22nd, starting at 9:15 am, the Communication Sciences Day will take place, this year in its seventh edition. This event has become a staple at the Fernando Pessoa University and features the participation of guests connected to media, journalism, culture, arts, and politics. And naturally, students and professors of Communication Sciences will also be present. The theme under discussion this time is... (In)Visibilities in Contemporary Communication.

The opening conference will feature Jorge Sobrado, Councillor for Culture and Heritage of the Porto City Council, who will be in conversation with Eduardo Paz Barroso on the topic... From the invisible city to the illuminated city..

Globalized cities today constitute powerful communication systems with architectures, in both a real and figurative sense, of different scales. But correlating with them are other volumes, shadow zones, opacities, symbolic peripheries. The unraveling of social ties, the liquefaction of urban spaces (Bauman) or the proliferation of non-places (Augé), the conflict between majorities and minorities, the disruptions in mobility, indifference, affect on a large scale this first major level of public communication constituted by contemporary cities, of which Porto is an example with a strong and ancient identity solidity. And for this reason, it preserves a social and liberal wisdom. Culture, with artists, institutions, and policies, faces the challenge of articulating all these planes. Only it is capable of giving visibility to creation, to contradictions and ambitions, both individual and collective. Only it is capable of realizing a new Enlightenment, defending reason, heritage, and aesthetic plurality.  

In a constantly accelerating world, populated by unpredictability and conflict, polarization and radicalism, clarification, quality information, scrutiny, and transparency are therefore decisive elements. They ensure the necessary lucidity to develop an interpretation of a reality that is often absurd, submerged in the spectacularity of images and the noise and chaos of social networks. Here too, communication is not always completely visible. It is important to access the other side, the less visible side. obvious, This can refer to both behind-the-scenes areas, such as newsrooms where decisions are made about what will be broadcast, or, as they say in film, everything that happens off-screen but has implications for what we see and hear.

Throughout the day, communication specialists, students, and professors will reflect on all of this, in an attempt to strengthen UFP's connection to this world full of enigmas, cruelties, but also Hope, of which Porto, and UFP, are visible signs. 

Design: Teacher Francisco Mesquita