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Nas últimas décadas, emergiu um novo ambiente mediático que tem enquadrado as experiências das crianças e dos jovens. Verifica-se uma socialização dos jovens no meio de várias realidades mediáticas, sendo que novas competências parecem ser adquiridas intuitivamente pelos jovens como a exploração da inter-conectividade entre vários media e formas de operar vários media simultaneamente. A estas alterações junta-se uma mudança do público para o privado na vida dos mais jovens, o que se relaciona, por um lado, com o declínio da "cultura de rua" e a retirada para a casa ou o apartamento, em especial, em contextos urbanos, por outro lado, com o declínio do convívio familiar em torno da televisão e a emergência da "cultura do quarto de dormir". Através de dados de dois inquéritos, um efectuado face-a-face e outro realizado na Internet, queremos demonstrar em que moldes essa "cultura do quarto de dormir" tem emergido entre os jovens portugueses. Além disso, pretende-se também ligar as transformações do ambiente mediático com a interacção familiar em torno dos media e com o significado do estatuto de "jovem" e do estatuto da família.

This report describes the results of a research project focused on helmet protection under impact of head to ground, and impact of an object to head. Three kinds of helmets were considered: construction, motorcycle and bicycle helmets. The goal of this project is to check the amount of stress absorbed by the skull and brain during the impact, as well as evaluate the maximum capacity of helmet protection. The material used for each helmet was the most common material in the current market, in order to make the results more realistic. The analysis consists of dynamic simulation of an impact in the helmet using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). First, the models were meshed using Hypermesh. After the modeling phase, analyses were made using ABAQUS (a computer aided engineering program) that shows the stresses and displacements experienced by the whole system: helmet, skull and brain. The results obtained from the analysis were displayed on charts that show the effect of the helmet based on different boundary conditions such as object height for the hard hat, and the rider speed for the bicycle and motorcycle helmets.

In order to understand the role of contemporary journalism and the media system it is vital to consider consumers’ relationship with news content in terms of trust and perception of dubious content. This analysis is particularly relevant in a context where intense flows of information raise serious questions about individual ability to interpret, validate, and reproduce content. This analysis explores a news literacy scale used by Maskl et al. (2015) and Fletcher (in Newman et al., 2018) to investigate the links between news literacy profiles and their relationship with content, with particular focus on illegitimate/doubtful news pieces. Results suggest individuals with higher news literacy tend to trust news in general but not when content originates in social media. Higher literacy profiles are also associated with increased concern regarding online content legitimacy. These conclusions are particularly relevant in the currently volatile media sphere, highly dependent on a substantially informed public to ensure the legitimacy and importance of journalistic content and to distinguish it from other kinds of content flooding communication networks. These efforts depend not only on the journalistic sphere but also on democratic systems themselves as they rely on a well-informed public to guarantee a healthy and inclusive debate.

This paper analyses the Portuguese society in its transition to the network society. Through the use of the Internet and its main drives (education and age) we discuss the inevitability, or not, of a generational gap in the Portuguese society, visible through strong differentiations in the social structure and practice. It is here suggested that the transition for the network society in Portugal may, eventually, be measured according to five individualised dimensions and the role played by Internet use in them: individual improvement, individual empowerment, individual consumption, network selectiveness and identity construction. These five dimensions are here discussed through empirical analysis of data gathered in a country wide survey representative of the Portuguese population involving 2450 individuals' in 2003.Keywords: informational society; social change; internet; transition to the Network society; Portugal.The Portuguese society that we try to portrait here is, as the Catalan society (Castells et al, 2004), a transitional society in almost every dimension. From education do the productive sphere, from cultural to social and political dimension.However, the causes of such transition are differentiated because of the context in which each society evolves and where this evolution comes from. If transition in Catalan society (Castells et al, 2003) owes much to obtaining the autonomy statute of Catalonia since 1980, in Portugal the date from which a line can be drawn and its reasons are clearly different.Both societies have in common a recent history of dictatorial regimes, in Portugal with Salazar's and Marcelo Caetano, "Estado Novo", and in Spain with Franquism. In Portugal the 25 th of April of 1974 marks a political revolution, from a dictatorial regime to a democracy, but also an economical revolution from a closed market corporativist model (settled on the close relationship between Portugal and its African colonies) to a regional (European Union) and global market economy. Along with this political and economical revolution there are also radical changes on the cultural and social dimensions, and in the educational sphere (Rosas, 1999; Viegas e Costa, 1998). The years from 1974 to 1976 set a trend of rupture and can be looked at as transition years to a model, at all levels, different from the former (Rosas, 1999). Copyright © 2008 (Gustavo Cardoso). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://obs.obercom.pt. Gustavo CardosoObservatorio (OBS*) Journal, 6 (2008) 002 Although public consultation over the educational reform will only take place in 1980 and the approval of the Education Act will only occur in 1986, the years between the 1974 Revolution and 1980 were years of deep changes in the primary education level.The school was given a fundamental role element in the building of a new society, wished as democratic, something expressed in the concerns of political personnel in charge of the educational field can be immediate...

In recent years, protests took the streets of cities around the world. Among the mobilizing factors were the perceptions of injustice, democratization demands, and, in the case of liberal democracies, waves of discontentment characterized by a mix of demands for better public services and changes in the discredited democratic institutions. This paper discusses social media usage in mobilization for demonstrations around the world, and how such use configures a paradigmatic example of how communication occurs in network societies. In order to frame the discussion, social media appropriation for the purposes of political participation is examined through a survey applied online in 17 countries. The ways in which social media domestication by a myriad of social actors occurred and institutional responses to demonstrations developed, it is argued that, in the network society, networked people, and no longer the media, are the message.

The analysis in this article focuses on the vertical and horizontal communication patterns of MPs, drawing on examples from a comparative survey done in seven European countries. The results show that the MPs in these countries can still be said to be in an initial phase of exploiting the full range of these new technologies to support their parliamentary and partisan activity, and that traditional media such as television, radio and newspapers are still the favoured means for political communication. In so far as ICT is used, MPs primarily use these means for internal communication within the party or within parliament, and not very much for external communication with constituents, journalists, lobbyists, etc. Analysing the use of homepages and political campaign via ICT both of these means are seen to be largely dependent on the political party of the MP, and the partyfls electoral strategies, limiting individual initiatives by MPs. Also, a certain disinterest in a more extensive us e of ICT on the part of the MPs was found. There seem to be a number of reasons for this disinterest, among these the argument that there is still a considerable digital divide especially in the Southern European countries. However, as computer and Internet diffusion continues to increase rapidly this argument becomes increasingly invalid.

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