CECS celebrates Press Freedom with launch of think tank

CECS marked World Press Freedom Day – 3 May – with the launch of its think tank Communitas in the form of a debate. The event, which was held in the ICS Hall, was attended by the director of CECS, Moisés de Lemos Martins, researchers Joaquim Fidalgo and Jean-Martin Rabot and the representative of Theatro Circo, Paulo Brandão.

With CECS’s live streaming on Facebook, the launch of Communitas strengthened the CECS director’s goals of “developing citizens’ critical ability to build humanitarian capacity and create the conditions to strengthen community.” Moisés de Lemos Martins pointed out that “all members of the CECS can feed” this tool that is the think tank.

Luís António Santos, deputy director of CECS and one of the researchers responsible for Communitas, presented the project and the debate, starting with the idea that this think tank aims to “promote reflection around the community”. In the debate we tried to discuss issues such as freedom of the press, false news and what is the truth.

Jean-Martin Rabot began the conversation by saying that he does not know “whether the false prejudices freedom” and stating that “truth can be found in silence”. The sociologist believes that “we are no longer able to make the selection between the true and the false” and that “too much information can kill information”. Also about the truth, Jean-Martin recalls that “each group has its little truth. There is no longer a single truth, but a multiplicity of truths”.

Joaquim Fidalgo followed Jean-Martin Robot’s thinking and added that “worse than too little information is too much information”, reason why “the noise of the excess of information is the forest that, instead of giving us to see, gives us the to hide”.

With a different point of view, focused on the individual freedom, Paulo Brandão made his contribution affirming that “this filtration that we need to do is only up to each one to decide”.

In line with the spirit of openness of knowledge produced at the university to the community, the debate also has an online expression on the think tank page and will host comments and opinions by the end of May.