Listen to Estados do Tempo BIP and Communitas Podcast

The challenges to the quality of journalism during the silly season are the main topic of conversation between Tiago Ramalho and Madalena Oliveira in this episode of Estados do Tempo. With newsrooms generally less busy and a dearth of topics to cover during the summer, we reflect on this being a time of year that offers scope for more in-depth journalism and the possibility of follow-ups, partly because there is less pressure from breaking news.

The birth of modern democracies is inextricably linked to the emergence of journalism and the development of communication and the media that have underpinned it over the last three centuries. So much so that it becomes difficult to discern which actually came first. It is from the paradox of this ‘Columbus’s egg’ that the discussion proposed by Estados do Tempo for episode 11 unfolds. With the help of Rui Pereira, a former investigative journalist who is now a lecturer and researcher at Lusófona University, we seek to untangle the complex knot that links the quality of information to the quality of democracy. Therefore, in this conversation, we scrutinise the role of the mass media – and its political economy – in its intersections and interactions with capitalism, populism, the rise of fascism, and disinformation.

The “failure” of the post-Cold War transition, the risks associated with the use of technology versus the comfort it provides, and a largely unregulated communications landscape in a world where neo-imperialism is taking hold, are some of the key points addressed in this conversation with Sandra Fernandes, Vice-Rector for International Cooperation at UMinho. The commitment to dialogue and cooperation is highlighted as fundamental to understanding between states.

As consumers, there are still many occasions when we are faced with situations of ‘information asymmetry’: situations in which there are substantial differences between the information held by those providing a particular service or selling a particular product, and the information that reaches the consumer. Researcher Ana Clara Azevedo de Amorim has been studying these asymmetries and how advertising may, or may not, mitigate them. She joins ‘Estados do Tempo’ to explain the importance of the quality of advertising information in consumer protection mechanisms.