News
Renata Frade, a DigiMedia researcher and PhD student, is the author of a chapter of the book “Direitos humanos e saúde : gênero e sexualidade em vozes insurgentes”, released by EdUFBA in partnership with Fiocruz.
The book can be downloaded here.
About this book:
Human rights and health: gender and sexuality in insurgent voices was organized by Angélica Baptista Silva, Maria Helena Barros de Oliveira, Patrícia Von Der Way and addresses emerging themes of gender, sexuality and human rights in health from a liberating and decolonial perspective. The work presents contributions from experts and final papers from the Postgraduate course in Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights at the Sergio Arouca National School of Public Health, at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (ENSP/Fiocruz), with 17 chapters divided into four thematic axes. The axes cover labor relations and occupational health; the health challenges of the LGBTQIAPN+ population; gender-based violence and vulnerabilities; and empowerment through education and technologies.
About the chapter DECOLONIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES – challenges for design from intersectional and feminist perspectives in Human-Algorithm Interaction (HCI), by Elen Nas and Renata Frade:
Before the human risks in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications were properly understood, the large data extractions that made up what was called big data represented structures organized through algorithms, in which the quality, representativeness and social significance of the data passed uncritically into the production environments (the “product design”) and programming. Since Feminist Human-Computer Interaction (Feminist HCI) is an interdisciplinary approach, in which the principles of feminism are applied to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), we present in this introduction some notes regarding the recurring biases in AI applications that, directly or indirectly, concern HCI.
The DigiMedia PhD students, Maria Ferreira and Sara Martins, organized a workshop on the Tableu software.
Over 2h30m, they showed and solved a practical exercise in which they demonstrated the main functions of Tableau prep, for cleaning and preparing data. Once the first step was completed, they opened the flow in Tableu Desktop to create the graphic vizualisation.
There was also time to present some of the work they have been doing in Tableu Public on Science communication.
The DigiMedia researcher Rita Santos is part of the team of the new PEX FCT project called Parenting Anxious Adolescents: An ACT approach to what works, which is coordinated by Paula Vagos, from the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Aveiro.
About this project:
Anxiety-related symptoms have been increasingly experienced by adolescents as early as 15 years old and associate with long-lasting impairment. Those symptoms have consistently been linked to rearing practices that may sustain (e.g., behavioral control) or help to cope with (e.g., autonomy granting) adolescent anxiety. In turn, those parental acts may reflect the parents’ psychological inflexibility or flexibility. Such psychological processes are at the core of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), both as a conceptual and intervention approach. Still, previous works have either failed to provide empirical evidence on conceptualizing parental (un)workable acts in relation to ACT processes or in using ACT to promote workable and meaningful acts within parent-adolescent dyads who are coping with adolescent anxiety. The current research project intends to address those gaps by working with parent-adolescent dyads to understand which parental acts seem to be associated with how adolescent cope with anxiety (Study 1) and to develop and explore the usability and helpfulness of the ACT2ParenTeens web-based intervention (Study 2).
Hélder Caixinha, a DigiMedia Researcher, was invited to participate in the project SHORES, coordinated by Helena Marinho (professor of the Department of Communication and Art) and financed by the Creative Europe Program.
Through musical creation, the project aims to raise communities’ awareness about the negative impact of the contamination on lakes, rivers and oceans, in their area of interaction with the land and human beings.
More information about this project and its partnerships here.
“Sensing in Inland Waters to Promote Safe Navigation: A Case Study in the Aveiro’s Lagoon” is the recently published paper in the Journal Sensors, by the Phd Student in Information and Communication in Digital Platforms, and his supervisors Jorge Ferraz Abreu (DigiMedia) and João Miguel Dias (DFis).
This article, in the scope of the doctoral project “Partilha e visualização de informação meteo-oceanográfica para a promoção da segurança marítima: Um estudo na Ria de Aveiro”, systematizes the data collection and the construction of a simulation station, which made it possible to build a system for sharing and visualizing meteo-oceanographic data.
The article was published in the special issue “Advanced Sensing Technologies for Marine Intelligent Systems” and can be read here.
The University of Aveiro hosted the 1st International Conference on Crisis Media Literacy (CML2024), organized by the DigiMedia team. This groundbreaking event took place on November 21st and 22nd, 2024 and brought together researchers, educators, media professionals, and policymakers to tackle the challenges of media literacy in crisis contexts, such as misinformation during wars, natural disasters, and other societal emergencies.
The opening day focused on empowering educators across Europe to integrate media literacy into school curricula. A panel featuring experts from Portugal, Spain, and Italy explored strategies to equip students with critical skills to navigate crises.
The day concluded with a hands-on workshop showcasing Data Defenders, an educational game from the Yo-Media project. Designed to enhance digital resilience, the game trains players to detect misinformation, critically analyze data, and develop a stronger understanding of media.
Held in the University’s Rectory auditorium, on the second day, the main conference featured leading academics and specialists addressing topics such as digital justice, sustainable media practices and media portrayals during crisis.
The program also included vibrant panel discussions on media policies, evolving consumption trends, and misinformation controversies on social platforms. These discussions fostered collaboration and generated solutions to strengthen media literacy.
The event concluded with a networking session, where participants shared ideas for future projects and strategies to advance crisis media literacy.
METELS – Measuring Engagement in Technology-Enhanced Learning Scenarios, coordinated by Mónica Aresta (DigiMedia), is one of the 7 projects funded in the field of Media and Communication, within the framework of Exploratory Projects in all scientific domains 2023.
On 22 November 2024, the FCT announced the final results of the call for Exploratory Projects in all scientific domains 2023, which will support 403 exploratory research projects (PEX) lasting 18 months.
METELS – Measuring Engagement in Technology-Enhanced Learning Scenarios, coordinated by researcher Mónica Aresta (DigiMedia, DECA, UA), was the second of the 7 projects recommended for funding in the area of Media and Communication, in which 30 applications were evaluated.
The METELS project aims to propose a framework and a scale that can be used – without neglecting appropriate design/technical implementation standards and taking into account digital ethics and digital wellbeing – when exploring user engagement in TEL scenarios from the perspective of digital ethics, positive computing and reflective design. Building on the principles of positive computing and reflective design and their intersection with different approaches to UE, the project will also seek to understand the extent to which features of deceptive patterns (also known as dark patterns) can be integrated into the design of TEL solutions, taking into account positive computing, ethics and reflective design.
The research team includes researchers Carlos Santos and Luís Pedro (DigiMedia) and Marisa Lousada (CINTESIS.UA@RISE).
The project consultants are Nuno Otero, Lecturer at the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at the University of Greenwich; Mónica Divitini, Professor at the Department of Information and Computer Science at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway; Cláudia Figueiredo, Researcher at the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences at the University of Aveiro; and Isabel Machado, Professor at IPAM Porto.
The METELS project is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the reference 2023.14504.PEX. Additionally, the project plans to recruit a recent PhD recipient for a postdoctoral fellowship to support the main activities to be carried out.
The Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO) invites submission of proposals for its annual conference, at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (NOVA FCSH), Lisbon, Portugal, July 14-18, 2025.
Proposals deadline: December 1, 2024
Conference Formats
1. Poster proposals
2. Short paper proposals
3. Long papers
4. Panel sessions”
More information: https://dh2025.adho.org/call-for-proposals/
Cláudia Ortet will present her thesis of the Doctoral Program in Information and Communication on Digital Platforms, with the topic “Evaluation of Gamification Strategies’ Impact in the Information and Communication Services of Cyclotourism for Senior Citizens”, at Sala de Atos Académicos, Edifício Central e da Reitoria da Universidade de Aveiro, on December 2, 2024, at 2 p.m.
More information here.
Lídia Oliveira and Catarina Feio are the authors of the article “O Telejornal Janta Connosco: O Consumo Noticioso nas Famílias e a sua Influência nos Jovens dos 15 aos 29 anos em Portugal”, recently published in the Portuguese Journal Media & Jornalismo (Scopus Q1).
The article can be read here.
The call for papers for the ACM IMX 2025 conference is now open. The conference will take place from June 3-6 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is the first time the event is being organized in Latin America. The organization is led by the University Federal Fluminense and the University of Aveiro with the collaboration of many other institutions around the world.
The conference topics include:
- VR
- AR
- MR
- XR
- 360°
- Live-streaming
- Online media content
- Authoring and production
- TV
- Multimodal content
The submission deadline is January 20, 2025! Prepare your papers and join us.
More information can be found on the IMX website.
Mónica da Silva e Silva will present her thesis of the Doctoral Program in Information and Communication on Digital Platforms, with the topic “A Infocomunicação em comunidades rurais de baixa literacia: Proposta de modelo de orientação colaborativa para e-turismo em Fontoura / Infocommunication in low-literacy rural communities: Proposal for a collaborative guidance model for e-tourism in Fontoura”, at the Auditório Nobre, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto, on November 11, 2024, at 2:30 p.m.
The composition of the Jury for this thesis can be consulted here.
