Public Communication, Education and Children's New Narratives in Pandemic Times: An Analysis of the Class of the President of Portugal to the Youth of his Country

Abstract

This article intents to analyze the initiative of the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who gave a class for Portuguese children and teenagers up to 16 years old about the ten fundamental lessons of COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical discussion is based on the importance of public communication and education, as expressions of the Right to Communicate, in the direction to a solidary and earthly citizen formation, under the bias of bibliographic review and theoretical discussion methodologies, in order to analyze the President’s discourse. To do so, we go through a brief history of children's rights, focusing on the Doctrine of Integral Protection. Then, we also talked about the right to communicate and its interface with education. Consequently, we describe the knowledge of the President and analyze it starting from the importance of quality public communication and education pro peace and human rights as solutions to face the uncertainties that mark our pandemic times. Finally, we understand, from the panorama and the discussion presented, that new narratives about childhood and adolescence are being written. We believe that Rebelo de Sousa’s attitude in prioritizing the young people of his country contributes to their protagonism. Although we add the caveat that this should be a priority for all rulers, and not just an opportunity action.