Inform and communicate: challenges of universities before the new coronavirus pandemic

Abstract

In this article, two important challenges for universities are described and analyzed in terms of their role in promoting and fostering scientific dissemination and literacy, especially in crisis situations such as the one caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Given the scenario of proliferation of false news and sensationalism, the most immediate of these is to inform, that is, to share with society credible information of public interest and utility, based on scientific evidence. For this, it is necessary to make the technical language of science and research more accessible, as well as to use social media strategically. The second challenge is to implement public communication actions and policies in higher education institutions (HEIs) that integrate their different communications (administrative, organizational, institutional, scientific). The article develops in three parts: it is based, according to Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2005), the context of delegitimization of universities, whose ideological fundamentalism identifies in these institutions expensive spaces, of confusion and without return for society; then the informational challenge of scientific literacy is discussed; and, finally, the communicational contours of Brazilian universities and their structural dilemmas are presented.