VI SOPCOM/VIII LUSOCOM were an national/international joint congress based in Lisbon at Universidade Lusófona. The majority of participants were Communication Sciences researchers from Portugal, Brazil and Spain. SOPCOM it’s an important Portuguese communication research association that organizes a congress in Portugal every two years. LUSOCOM is a communication research federation aimed at congregate Portuguese speakers researchers.

The paper of this conference is in Portuguese and is available here.

Below, the abstract in English:

Communication and science through ethical issues of life sciences

This work intends to present the research project Science and Society: promoting citizenship through the reflection of ethical issues of life sciences. This is an joint initiative of the Bioethics Research Centre (GIB) and the Research Center for Science and Technology in Arts (CITAR), both from the Portuguese Catholic University. According to a transdisciplinary model of research, its aim is to make an ethical reflection about the issues related to the development of life sciences and to study and develop new methodologies and communication tools, audiovisual and digital ones. Due to the universe we intend to study; the topics and the methodological and technical development we want to promote in science communication, one can say this is a complex project. The project plan will be built in various steps of research. Firstly, we gonna make a national survey to understand waht Portuguese people think about bioethical and life sciences issues. Then we propose to make an audience study about how the information is interpreted and reorganized. After that, we must develop strategies and tools in science communication and public participation in issues that may affect directly or indirectly their experiences. These strategies will comprise the development of multimedia tools.

Better than a website, a weblog make every step of our research easily accessible by the public interested in our theme and work – experts and non-experts.

Please, let us know what you think about the issues posted here. We apreciate your comments and suggestions.

All the best!