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Friday, October 29, 2021 at 07:00

The URJC hosts the annual meeting of UNESCO Communication Chairs

The Rey Juan Carlos University will host the meeting of ORBICOM, the Association of UNESCO Chairs in Communication. Within the framework of this event, the congress 'Health crisis and communication crisis in the COVID 19 era' is also held.

Raul Garcia Hemonnet

On November 3, 4 and 5, the Rey Juan Carlos University will be the scene of a great international academic meeting. Although in online format due to the global health situation, the University will host the annual meeting of ORBICOM, the UNESCO Association of Communication Chairs.

Carmen Caffarel, professor of Audiovisual Communication and director of the UNESCO Chair in Communication, Comunesco, is in charge of organizing the meeting, “every year ORBICOM organizes a world meeting of chairs that has always been in person. The last one was in Strasbourg, France and the next one was going to be in Jakarta, Indonesia. This year we organize it, although in virtual format”, indicates the teacher.

The ORBICOM meeting brings together the UNESCO Chairs of Communication from the five continents who, on November 5, will meet to, among other initiatives: plan the association's work for the following year, elect a board of directors and "set the objectives of action and transfer of knowledge of the chairs”, points out Carmen Cafarell, emphasizing the importance of this.

The URJC organizes this meeting of high international academic level within the framework of its 25th anniversary celebrations.

Health and communication crisis

Parallel to this meeting, the Congress 'Health crisis and communication crisis in the COVID-19 era' is held. This meeting will serve to present the work that the various UNESCO communication chairs have developed over the last year on this subject.

As Carmen Cafarell explains, “I thought of linking what had happened to us as a planet, the COVID-19 pandemic, with the communicative responses that have been given from different countries, I raised it with the director of ORBICOM and we started working a anus".

The start of the Congress will be the inaugural conference by Marielza Oliveira, Director of Alliances and Monitoring of UNESCO's Operational Program in the area of ​​Communications and Information, which will deal with the priorities of the organization in the medium term in relation to communication. The event will be opened by the rector of the URJC, Javier Ramos, the president of ORBICOM, Dr. Jamal Eddine Naji, and Professor Caffarel

In addition, several round tables have been established that will deal with topics such as: the communicative experiences in different countries of the world to face COVID-19, disinformation and educational challenges or theoretical and methodological approaches to understand crisis communication processes, among others. others.

For Carmen Caffarel, the media in this crisis, “have done a good job of disseminating the pandemic by offering data and scientific testimonies. But it is also true that some media have collected certain information from social networks that has been able to influence decision-making. Putting scientific information on the same level as the political assessment of said information can confuse”.

Both the Congress and, above all, the meeting of chairs, have the objective of offering society the keys to carry out better communication, especially in times of crisis, such as that generated by the pandemic and thus improve life and the well-being of it.