COVID-19 and Culture of Peace

COVID-19 promoted and exacerbated the use of different social networks. A flood of messages flood WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook ... Mandatory preventive isolation turned external social life into an involuntary exile from environmental interiority. The screens occupy the attention and the time, which was previously managed in a different way, today it expands in networks and in different applications. Almost all of our time is on the Internet. Among the advantages that this new form of network consumption produces, the abundance of data on pandemic events that creates awareness about a globality that erases physical borders and social recipients of class stands out. It also provides information about health prevention, promotes greater connection with loved ones, the exchange of good readings and reflections on spirituality as well as collective participation in virtual religious celebrations, such as the Urbi et Orbi blessing given by Pope Francis in Plaza San Pedro.

But there are other effects on behaviors that coexist with the aforementioned benefits: the use of dedicated time that partially displaces or cancels other possibilities of performing non-virtual tasks and that also puts at risk good communication affected by content based on fake news, cross-linking of data or overabundance of information. Consumption of data with scientific inconsistency also occurs. However, in addition to these networks, there are other possibilities for different uses that provide less risk, and carry out their tasks reliably. These are training sites, the product of collective constructions with critical and purposeful participation by their users. And this is the case of the new SIGNIS platform www. signismedudesk.org, where members from all regions of our organization participate as users who put at the service of the global community: experiences, productions, programs, theory and guides for the formation of participatory citizenship in processes of social transformation, based in values of humanity and justice that contribute to the development of a more just society. Today our culture is of strong digital imprint in which SIGNIS can contribute so that its specific goal, communication, fulfills its mission of consolidating a Culture of Peace.

Carlos Ferraro Director of the Department of Media Education