Communication and Media, Treasures in Transformation

Communication and media. Two important words, but also two concepts that are clearly evolving. The main reason? The new technological frontiers: the internet, social media, smartphones that record and listen to everything —changing the very way we communicate.

It is therefore important to reflect on media and communication. We need to question their health, their identity, in this transitional phase —with influencers, bloggers, YouTubers, fake news— at a delicate moment in history when communication and media play a fundamental role in guiding the masses and weigh heavily on already precarious geopolitical balances, while also facing the advance of artificial intelligence.

Reflection on communication and media is then no easy task. It is a journey that we consider only just begun, but one we will continue to pursue over time, always striving to examine the subject with precision, and to narrate its role serving justice and democracy, peace, unity, and fraternity among peoples and cultures. All themes at the heart of the work of United World Project.

We spoke about communication and media, in particular television, with journalist and TV host of Tv2000, Gennaro Ferrara. Many Topics were covered: from platforms to youth, from the role of journalists to the concepts of responsibility and truth for those who practise this profession. His extensive interview provided many valuable insights.

We continued speaking about communication through the story of Cinemovel Foundation, which for twenty years has been bringing cinema to places where there is none. It delivers it to those who need it most —Just think of the trip to Senegal some time ago, with Matteo Garrone’s film Io Capitano (lit. Me Captain in Italian), screened in the very places where the protagonists of the film began their dramatic journey to Europe.

Images are a means of communication even when they are fictional. This is what cinema has been doing for over a century, and what TV series do when they are of quality. Such is the case of Adolescence, which we discussed with Argentine psycologist Macarena Sanjuan, to whom we are grateful for helping us interpret this intense story about adolescence.

Images are a tool of communication even when they are still. Even when they are photographs. Especially when they are extraordinary, like those of the great Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. We duly paid tribute to him with an article largely based on the documentary The Salt of the Earth.

We continued to talk about media and communication, this time focusing on its written form (both paper and online) with journalist and writer Michele Zanzucchi. His answers also greatly helped us to navigate this complex subject.

Rounding off our summer newsletter (July/August) is the the interesting interview with Sister Piera Ruffinato, President of the Pontifical University Auxilium in Rome.