Community, Freedom and Crisis: The Past, the Present and Ideas about the Future of Communication Sciences in Portugal

Abstract

How did the communication sciences emerge and evolve in Portugal after the 25 April 1974 Revolution? This was the motto for a conversation with Moisés de Lemos Martins, emeritus full professor of communication sciences at the University of Minho, founder of the Communication and Society Research Centre, current director of the Faculty of Communication, Architecture, Arts and Information Technologies at Lusófona University, founding and honorary member of the Portuguese Association of Communication Sciences (Sopcom), which he headed between 2005 and 2015, and currently president of the Ibero-American Association of Communication Researchers (Assibercom).

Moisés de Lemos Martins' career has been unique in every respect: he has been involved in the creation of communication studies courses, the creation of a research centre in the field, the promotion of associations and academic communities (at national, Portuguese-speaking countries and Ibero-American levels), the negotiation of the inclusion of communication studies as a specific area of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), and many other milestones in the history of this scientific field. He is, therefore, in a privileged position to take us on a critical journey through the past and present of communication sciences, while also reflecting on the future of the field.

In this first-person account, we get a glimpse of a discipline that was recognised late, born in Portugal after the revolution, in times of so-called freedom. Today it is a field in permanent crisis, like academia or society in general, conditioned by the times we live in — a time of acceleration, permanent mobilisation, immediate connection with the skin and emotions, constantly at the expense of thinking.

The relationship between communication studies and freedom and cultural studies, the first steps taken by the field in Portugal — from the creation of the first courses to the recognition of its specificity by the FCT —, the importance of community, academic collaboration and struggle are the topics touched upon in this conversation, in which the culture of rankings, competition, quality, and precariousness are not forgotten.