The Social Observatory (OS in Spanish) of the University of Las Tunas, created five years ago as an interdisciplinary space in a position to contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of decisions for the benefit of the university community, is carrying out valuable work of advice, study, and attention to the processes and socio-political climate at the University of Las Tunas.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- With three fundamental areas of work, this body provides theoretical support for the research carried out at the university and calls for a rethinking of categories and concepts in the face of new political, ideological, technological, and communicational contexts in which it is urgent to be better informed.
At the same time, it places this knowledge in the practice of training in values or in the extension activity itself, while at the same time, it has a direct anti-subversive dimension as a barrier against the attacks on Higher Education in Cuba and the efforts to misinform and influence the young population of the island.
Doctor of Philosophical Sciences Carlos Alberto Suárez Arcos, who coordinates this work team, recently told the newspaper Granma that "the Observatory reads signals, identifies processes and, based on the experience it accumulates, dares to make diagnoses associated with possible behaviors, patterns, and trends, which have associated consequences in terms of memory, the senses, ideology, politics, and communication.
"Let's bear in mind that Professor Fernando Buen Abad speaks of a social cyber autism and, understanding in depth the reason for this definition, we understand that the battle that is being fought at the moment is to attract the senses, to get the attention of the subject, and this implies exciting, motivating, breaking with the traditional nature of the processes. Incorporating new dynamics," he explained.
As an example of the activity undertaken, the Observatory of the University of Las Tunas, together with students from the Law course, worked on the dissemination, analysis, and understanding of the national election process, actions previously developed in the municipal elections, the referendum on the Family Code and even during COVID-19.
During intense legislative work, OS experts also contributed to the Law on Symbols, the Law on Fishing and Social Communication, and in the future, they plan to contribute to this area in the community environment, as proposed in the last of these legislative norms.
"Although the origin is determined by the improvement of the work in the Ministry of Higher Education, its results transcend the university environment and respond to the President's call for academia to contribute to the dynamization of social affairs. In this sense, some examples include the Communication Development Project. Techniques for the improvement of community communication based on training in values and the history of Cuba."
They also participate in other projects, such as the case of the Methodological Design of the multidimensional vulnerability index, which is governed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and by which social workers are trained and interact with people without employment and students, together with other problems.
In the same way, the Observatory coordinates the national project Political Communication. Theory and praxis for party and governmental management of ideological processes, which opens horizons for an increasingly important exercise in this field of exchange with the people.
To counteract the media and cultural campaign against Cuba, the modeling carried out by the OS also favors the human and sustainable development of society and, at the same time, is of great value amid a digital ecosystem in which the national reality is constantly misrepresented.
