Beginning of residency: November 30, 2020
Resident at IEAT, Claudio Paixão Anastácio de Paula holds a degree in Psychology from Fundação Mineira de Educação e Cultura, a Master’s degree in Information Science from UFMG and a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of São Paulo (USP). He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Information Theory and Management (DTGI) at the School of Information Science at UFMG. He is the coordinator of GEDII (Office of Information and Imaginary Studies in the Graduate Program in Information Science at UFMG (PPGCI/UFGM). He is a researcher at GECCI (Group of Cognitive Studies in Information Science) and EPIC (Studies of Informational Practices and Culture), both linked to PPGCI/UFMG. He is also coordinator of the specialization course in “Information and People Management” (GIP) at the Center for Technological and Managerial Information (NITEG) at ECI/UFMG.
BELIEF AND DISINFORMATION ECOSYSTEMS: THE PROBLEM OF INFORMATION IN HYPERMODERNITY AND THE SEARCH FOR A TRANSDISCIPLINARY ANSWER TO AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PHENOMENON
The project intends to develop the bio-psycho-historical-social foundations for a new approach to the informational field with a view to combating misinformation from the understanding of the mental ecology that sustains it. This proposal will be developed from the construction of a conceptual bridge between the conceptions of schème (a word that could be translated into Portuguese as a mental schema) in Jean Piaget and Gilbert Durand, evaluating the suitability of its incorporation into a critical epistemology of the field and, consequently, the creation of an integrative approach for theories dedicated to understanding the concept of information. From this elaboration, it is proposed to characterize the mental ecology of disinformation as support for the dissemination and belief in false information and associating it with the transposition of the approach to evolutionary models of transferring cultural information proposed by memetics to the informational field. Finally, it proposes to draw a parallel between: 1) the use of the term schèma (in approximate translation into Portuguese; represented scheme, diagram) and the theory of schematization by the Schematist School of Information Science and 2) a possible use of the schème concept and a theory of schemetization to support the need to build a basis for redefining the informational field. It is argued that this need for redefinition is raised by the problems of the hypermodern condition and, based on the disciplinary opening that this approach would provide for theoretical dialogues between social, cognitive, technological, political and economic currents involved in the discussion of infocommunication problems, it is intended to define a purposeful informational territory aimed at solving pressing issues such as the urgency of media literacy and awareness of the importance of online communication from a critical perspective. The project provides, as a way of materializing its results into concrete actions, a series of actions aimed at scientific dissemination at the research, teaching and extension levels, both to make research results public and to transform these reflections in practical actions to combat misinformation.