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- Iconolatria publicitária pós-moderna: semiótica e retórica no espaço urbanoPublication . Barroso, PauloI plan to underline the (conscious and/or unconscious) performance of advertising as a mass discourse in urban spaces, i.e. mass discourse produced by a specific (post-)modern rhetorical strategies to a peculiar target or audience. My propose follows the field of study of the semiotics of advertising, which practical application allows us to read and understand the social values of a given urbanity, i.e. the visual and architectural support of consumerist and post-modern ideologies (according to Gilles Lipovetsky’s theory) in different cities. To implement this semiotic approach, the methodology starts with a conceptualization of the semiotics of advertising as a building structure of visual and urban landscape. Taking into account the scope of this theoretical research, the requirements of the topic and the guidance imposed by the objectives, I will also follow an empirical analysis of the issue, in order to demonstrate the subsequent expected results. This includes the interest of visual semiotics of advertising. In a global and postmodern time and space, this kind of applied semiotics is characterized by binding consumerist messages and dominant values in urban public space. This paper will be comprised with the following stages: planning, research, determining the sources of information, observation and recording, understanding, interpretation, classification, questioning, explaining visual phenomena, formulating hypotheses, evidence and conclusions. For the practical part of my research plan, I’ll follow a methodological approach to researching, collecting, sorting and processing the data. After that, I’ll follow the subsequent written and visual presentation of outdoors or frontage of buildings (the faces or fronts of the urban landscape), which are representative of some specific rhetorical strategies in urban public space. These strategies are, sometimes, visual pollution, because the plethora of advertising images saturates and indiscipline the aesthetic view over the cities. According to Gilles Deleuze, the name of “civilization of image” is, mainly, a particular connotation to “civilization of the cliché”, which explanation may be related to the iconic inflation that relies on redundancy and, on the other hand, in the concealing, distortion or manipulation of certain images, so that these images conceals the reality, rather than become a medium to uncover it. Thus, there would be, according to Deleuze, a general interest to “hide something with the image”, i.e. it’s own persuasive natural character. I argue, therefore, that all visual/iconic advertising discourses in urban space are the result of persuasive and significant strategies. The excessive flow of images affects human behavior. So, we need to talk about the “ecology of the image”, i.e. the care about the visual pressure we are daily submitted. To the theoretical support of this subject, I think it is relevant the use of a specific literature on the semiotics of advertising very close in resemblance with that preached by the pan-semiotics of Roland Barthes.
- Marx e a concepção ilusória de perfeição e de absolutoPublication . Barroso, PauloA concepção marxista sobre a ideologia é paradigmática, ainda hoje, para a compreensão das formas de consciência colectiva, sistemas sociais de representação (e.g. religiões, mitos, ideologias) ou ideais partilhados de perfeição e de absoluto, todos assentes num essencialismo, primado ou prisma: real ou racional, facto ou ilusão, vida ou consciência, relativo ou absoluto. Ao mascarar as relações com a realidade, definindo uma determinada visão do mundo e um modo de pensar e de agir, a ideologia é um sistema de representações distorcidas, ilusórias ou de falsa consciência, mas com implicações práticas. Ao contrário do absolutismo racional ou idealismo absoluto e dialéctico de Hegel, segundo o qual “todo o racional é real e todo o real é racional”, Marx empreende o primado da realidade sobre o pensamento e regista que não é a consciência que determina o ser e a vida, mas o contrário. Todavia, a ideologia fomenta a ideia de que é a consciência que determina a vida, porque o que pensamos é um produto da sociedade em que vivemos. Ao procurarem um certo essencialismo, as concepções sobre a natureza humana (onde se inclui o cristianismo e, paradoxalmente, o marxismo) são relativas, por mais antagónicas que sejam; são ideologias, modos de vida, imaginários sociais ideais, produtos da cultura e prática sociais. Em A Ideologia Alemã, a ideologia é um reflexo invertido do real na consciência, como a inversão das imagens numa câmara escura, uma fantasmagoria, uma ilusão sobre a qual se baseia, erroneamente, a religião e a moral que definem e condicionam o que somos. A partir da concepção de ideologia de Marx e seguindo uma estratégia reflexiva e aporética, pretende-se: a) reconhecer o contributo da ideologia para a concepção ilusória de perfeição e de absoluto na religião; e b) caracterizar o ser humano como produto ideológico, i.e. moldado por uma alienação social e um “pensamento pensado”.
- Painting SensationsPublication . Barroso, PauloBacon’s paintings are images-sensations, a figurative art that composes a visual rhetoric of pathos. It is a rhetoric of sensations centred on the effects of visual signs on the spectators/ viewers. The pathos is something perceptive and sensitive that happens in the spectators/ viewers; it is driven, incited, provoked by Bacon’s images. The pathos is indistinctly caused by the intentional and strategic use of a visual language. The meanings of the visual signs are formed a priori and transmitted as clearly as possible in reference to a given situation, activity, event, reality/world. If this is so, the use of rhetoric is emphatic to explore the pathos instigated by Bacon’s images-sensations. Following a theoretical and conceptual approach and through the lens of Deleuze’s perspective, the aim is to show the power of visual rhetoric when provoking sensations, and to problematize the representation and report of reality as a changing process through signs/images. This is demonstrated by Bacon’s images-sensations and Deleuze’s transcendental empiricism perspective. In a semiotic perspective, Bacon’s paintings are a perfect anchorage to understand the influence of an aesthetical language and practice of image as a visual rhetoric resource, which amplify the pathos.
- O primado do “homem-meio”: o legado ético da revolução coperniciana do self-mediaPublication . Barroso, PauloFace à mudança de modelo comunicacional e às valências dos novos media, importa indagar: a) O poder da informação aumentou ou diminuiu? b) Há uma maior ou menor responsabilização do papel do jornalista? c) Qualquer cidadão pode fazer de jornalista recorrendo aos self-media? A ascensão do sujeito-objeto ou homem-meio apaga o recetor e inverte os papéis do jornalista e do público (figurativamente comparável a uma revolução coperniciana: o primado do cidadão-jornalista ou “homem-meio”). Em conformidade com esta problemática, os objetivos desta proposta são: 1) analisar criticamente o atual campo dos media, designadamente as relações entre os agentes (emissor e recetor); 2) compreender o processo de mudança enquanto forma de identificar as características da sociedade da informação e as suas implicações na mediação com um mundo global, complexo e em mudança e que, por isso, exige novas formas de literacia e cidadania. Esta proposta tem um cariz eminentemente teórico, porque se funde nas perspetivas mais conhecidas e acuradas sobre a comunicação de massas (e.g. McLuhan, McQuail, Sartori ou Ramonet). Por conseguinte, não existe objeto empírico de análise nem caso de estudo, mas apenas um objeto de estudo reflexivo: os self-media. Considerando este âmbito teórico, bem como o objeto de estudo e os objetivos acima mencionados, a metodologia prima pela análise crítica: parte-se dos autores e estudos de referência para se interpretar o modo como os self media (extensões dos avanços tecnológicos e globais na comunicação e consequência da “Era de Emerec” idealizada por Cloutier na década de 1970) representam, por um lado, a forma de participação moderna individualizada (e não profissionalizada nem regulamentada) de novos atores nos processos de comunicação social (no espaço público/mediático e igualmente modificado), por outro lado, a forma de reconhecimento quer da própria construção mediática quer da construção de sentido da atualidade virtualizada.
- Digital literacy in the brave new e-sphere: How to survive in an ocean of false information?Publication . Barroso, PauloOne of the messages of Huxley’s Brave New World is the alarm against the dangers of technology and the control of society through the manipulation of information. The social circulation of false information is not recent; it’s part of the history of the media. Despite the mission of journalism to seek and report the truth, false information already proliferated before the social media. However, the social media give a new impulse to false information, attracting and influencing public opinion. Notwithstanding the noble social functions of journalism in informing, clarifying, and socializing, McLuhan warned of the opposite effects in “Culture Without Literacy” (1953). Warning about situations of falsehood, omission, lies or manipulation that now proliferate in the e-sphere, a new networked virtual public sphere (where we immerse ourselves online in connectivity and interactivity with immanence and immediacy), McLuhan called for the care in interpreting media messages. This is an escalated and reconfigured problem with the Internet. According to Baudrillard in Simulacra and Simulation, we are in a universe in which there is more and more information and less and less meaning. The care in interpreting mass media and social media messages is emerging, imposing the need for a new literacy and citizenship in this new digital public sphere. With the new technological means of communication and their multiple uses and effects, the concept of literacy changes, becomes more comprehensive and becomes a practical and necessary capacity to participate in the public sphere. This is demonstrated by the journalistic projects of fact-checking, whose objective is to ascertain the truth of the messages that circulate in the public sphere. It is no longer enough the journalists to produce news; it is necessary to verify facts and separate them from false information. Media literacy promotes critical thinking skills with which citizens can independently and conscientiously choose content, i.e. choose the program, the media or the way to interpret the information received. Media literacy is more difficult when the messages are ideological, rhetorical or with implicit content. In these cases, it is imperative to identify: the significant facts/events in the news; the causes of events and journalistic criteria; the connections between events and agents and their consequences; the information included and omitted; the choices of words and images (denotative or connotative) presented or shared; the order of narration of the facts; the presentation of direct speech or points of view. With media and digital literacy, it is possible for citizens to recognize whether (and how) the media are used to (dis)encourage debate based on false, distorted, or hidden information. Media and digital literacies are as one and are an important democratic instrument in the public sphere, especially in this digital age of online. By questioning the contribution of journalistic literacy in the new virtual configuration of the public sphere, we will be better able to discern what is true from what is false. As fake news is not easy to identify, media and digital literacy is basic knowledge about the new technological nature of media and how they work. Following a theoretical and conceptual approach based on the example of the journalistic model of fact-checking, this new imposition is discussed as a practice of promoting literacy, citizenship, and democracy in the e-sphere. The objectives are to understand the repercussions of this new dimension of communication in the digital age and to recognize fake news and disinformation in the digital environment as obstacles to the modern public sphere and to media literacy, in order to survive in our new ocean of false information.
- Comunicação e Intencionalidade: Possibilidades da Comunicação Intencional como Experiência da ExterioridadePublication . Barroso, PauloHow can we communicate intentions? What one means when one uses a certain expression about his inner states, like “I have a pain”? What “understand someone” means? These are some of many others questions that we have to underline when we pretend analyse the importance of normal and ordinary linguistic productions. Questions that help us to understand the use, production and functionalism of ordinary language. However, there are others communication manners, like intra-personal communication processes? The main focus of this paper is about the proficiency and use of ordinary language. Thus, this paper intends to present a theoretical analysis between language, inner states (thought, sensation, perception, feeling, etc.) and reality. Trilogy as a complex system organizing experiences into meaningful structures, considering some issues: i) language of thought (or intra-communication); ii) semantic inter-subjectivity; iii) inter-translated languages to explore the interactive conception; iv) mental and linguistic construction of reality; v) conceptual pathologies of language; and vi) expressive act of meaning. In this paper, the basic approach embraces the analysis of a simple semiotic concept, is that of meaning, considering the language’s difficulties and proficiencies to represent (describe or express) the world (as individual mental construction). It seems to me obvious that a great many of the things that we say (and understand from what is said) we say (and understand) because we learn them in conversation with others, in which it is the intention of the interlocutors to inform of something. Based on Grice’s work, i shall argue that it is also important what isn’t said when it is said, beyond what is said when it is not said.
- On Philosophy and Language of Photojournalism: the (Un)Ethical Aestheticization of ViolencePublication . Barroso, PauloAll languages have a code. Photography is a language, but it has no code; it is universally seen. The language of photography (its image) is not seen in Chinese, Arabic or English. Press photographs, especially those reporting violence and war, showing dead, dying or suffering people, become trivial in modern visual cultures. They have ethical implications: its excessive iconic violence. Through a visual rhetoric, they are simulacra, provoking sensationalism, making the real seem less stimulating and violent than its image. They are a fetish product whose power is in the ideological and aesthetical ways of seeing and thinking the events.
- Governmental communication strategies in crisis management: the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal and BrazilPublication . Barroso, PauloThe current pandemic crisis has transformed the world from the beginning and boosted the communication social phenomenon and the new technological devices, means and platforms. Communication processes had already switched from analogue to digital before COVID-19. Governments all over the world had to implement measures against the same global, invisible, and quick-spreading enemy. Each country (e.g. Portugal and Brazil) followed different strategies depending on culture (customs, history, traditions) and political regimes (left or right ideologies). The results were also different, regardless of the persuasive power of political communication as an essential rhetorical resource in democracy and citizenship. Today, the world is much closer and connected due to the globalization of technology and communication. Online network relationships intensify during the health crisis and the notion of a “new normal” imposed by the pandemic cements more mediated lifestyles. The uses, means and effects of communication have also changed. In social networks, all-to-all communication is intensified, and any citizen is simultaneously producer and consumer of digital contents. Media transformations are qualitative and quantitative, but fake news proliferates, disinformation creates mistrust and meanings are scarce. Political strategic communication is an art form and rhetorical technique. It takes care of the way and means of transmitting information, influencing the public to act, feel and think accordingly. Strategic communication benefits from Aristotle’s three technical means of persuasion (ethos, pathos, and logos), capital for the effectiveness of any public and political discourse. Therefore, how do communication strategies about COVID-19 in Portugal and Brazil persuade to change social behaviors? Following a theoretical and practical approach on strategies in political communication against the pandemic in Portugal and Brazil, the objective is to discuss the persuasive effectiveness of government strategic communication in managing the pandemic crisis.
- Comunicação e estratégia na crise pandémica em Portugal e no BrasilPublication . Barroso, PauloComo as estratégias em comunicação sobre a COVID-19 em Portugal e no Brasil persuadem para a mudança de comportamentos sociais? Este artigo apresenta uma análise qualitativa centrada nas estratégias em comunicação política contra a pandemia em Portugal e no Brasil, na sua fase inicial em 2020. O objectivo é caracterizar a eficácia persuasiva da comunicação estratégica governamental na gestão da crise pandémica.