Manifestações da midiatização na comunidade do saber: estratégias comunicacionais da UFSM diante dos ataques à educação superior no Brasil

Abstract

Mediatization is a qualitative leap in the social fabric (GOMES, 2019), reconfiguring the entire structure of contemporary societies. In Latin America, the studies that approaches to this concept follow a trend that is anchored in the studies of the argentinian author Eliseo Verón. He understands the complex communication flows, imbricated in the social fabric, facing the information and communication technologies, from the concept of media circulation. In this way, approaching the proposal of circulation is to consider that this environment is not just a space for the passage of communicational flows, but rather the complexification of the meanings present in the messages and the reconfiguration of the formats of interaction. In Brazil, the circulation focuses on the studies of the authors from Unisinos research line called “Mediatization and Social Processes”, punctually with the vast work of Professor Fausto Neto. Thus, to understand the mediatization of society, today, is to understand the complex process of meaning emerging in a “new contact zone” that is in fact the circulation. This research is also anchored in the understanding of the university as a community of knowledge (BARICHELLO, 2001), which has education as a common good that circulates within the geographical boundaries of the campuses. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges in these institutions is the dissemination of this knowledge, so mediatization plays an important role in these spaces, which is reconfigured in the face of information and communication technologies available in the social fabric. In 2019, with the government renovation and some specific factors of the complex game of meaning in dispute (FAUSTO NETO, 2019), universities needed to legitimize themselves against the attacks and the parliamentary reconfiguration. The Federal University of Santa Maria faces a complex game of meanings when it needs to legitimize itself against the criticism. Thus, our mediatized case study (WESCHENFELDER, 2019) is built in the face of two episodes: the "Balbúrdia", which begins with the speeches of the former minister of education, Abraham Weintraub, contingeting the funds of the country's federal institutions; and "Future-se", which starts with the speeches of the former minister, but is strengthened with the speeches of the businessman Luciano Hang, from Santa Catarina state. Thus, our research problem arises in order to understand the question: "how the logics of mediatization affect and mobilize different segments of UFSM in the face of the attacks it suffered from different actors and institutions in 2019?". Therefore, our general objective focuses on identifying the circulation of meanings in UFSM's mediatized communication strategies, in the face of the attacks that the university suffered from May to November of 2019. Our main research findings are related to the media construction that UFSM develops for its communication strategies, where it reconfigures the social actors for co-participating agents in its strategies. Now, such agents are a structuring part of the circulation of meanings, transforming the university into an agent of media circulation. As other agents (such as Luciano Hang and Paulo Afonso Burmann) insert themselves in the disputes of meanings, straining the idea of the university and its values, the bubbles of identity in media circulation become clear. That is, the different actors integrate bubbles that characterize social values and ideological perspectives that form group identities and provide a bond of belonging. However, such bubbles intersect itselves in disputes of meanings, with each actor launching himself into media production, triggering complex circuits that reveal mediatization operations.