BOOK FOREWORD
http://scibi.fba.up.pt/scibibook.pdf
The book you can download here is somewhat of a paradox. It addresses and documents an exploratory research project on the current, ongoing volatility of knowledge reliability. Throughout the research, we have become deeply aware of how the seemingly exponential speed and complexity of events and developments is far surpassing our ability to fully comprehend and act upon them. Indeed, the core term is “exploratory”, as our original research ambition to make sense of phenomena, causes and impact of disinformation, particularly in regards to its online ramifications, preceded the game-changing launch of ChatGPT by half a year… An expressive vouch for action research, if there ever was one. We need to be on the case, as the case does not wait.
If the narratives and responses to the recent pandemic served as an anchor and a means to specify a time-frame for the research hereby presented, the ambition was always to reach conclusions and issue recommendations that could be applied elsewhere, both in thematic terms (other health crises) and pervasive structural challenges (cognitive chasms, ideological implications, scientific mistrust). These conclusions and recommendations, stemming from the multitude of action-based research experiments conducted, are presented at the end of this book. They have emerged as less analytical or prescriptive than expected, and more as calls for a substantial reinvention of formal discourse and parameters of literacy.
We have illustrated this proposed reinvention to the extent that current technologies and associated dynamics permit; however, it is the principle of a continued semantic and rhetorical self-scrutiny and self-reinvention that must be projected and employed beyond the present research - because the collapse of cognitive consensus is ongoing, and the issue of perception is itself becoming a growing concern when it comes to the tangible reliability of what we witness, mediate, consume and ultimately believe. As technological sophistication and algorithmic self-sufficiency expand towards territories not yet fully comprehended, so we must engage in radically sobering pedagogies of perception, cognition and discourse.
As such, and despite taking the form of a printed book, we believe the present research is actually taking its first steps: a quest for lucidity will only get more difficult in the coming years, it seems. Itself, the book chronicles and documents an early exploration of the hypothesis that Communication Design may be a key agent in addressing multiple manifestations of disinformation; but in truth, the most decisive content we provide in this volume is the URL to the ongoing Typology Chart, where further developments and perplexities will continue to be inscribed. And this is the paradox of the present book: it is only as good as the work ahead.
Heitor Alvelos, August 2024
