The Centre of Studies in Technologies and communication Sciences (CETAC.MEDIA) has the following goals:

• Contribute to the development of scientific research by carrying out research projects, collective or individual, and provide a space for
  dialogue and development of projects between researchers in engineering, social sciences and communication and arts, in order to establish a common field that allows to transcend the usual difficulties between technological and non technological areas; 
• Continuously develop fundamental scientific research, both applied and experimental in the areas of Communication Sciences, Social and Human Sciences, Audiovisual and New Technologies, both at inter- and trans-disciplinary levels;
• Contribute to the improvement of scientific communication from Porto University to the community;
• Support advanced pos-graduation (PhDs., M.Phils. and other pos-graduation training courses);
• Stimulate the development of national and international networks for scientific and technological cooperation between researchers, universities, research centres and other private organisations, specifically operating in the media area;
• Contribute to the dissemination of research results, by the publication of a periodical, as well as production of contents for the media (print, documentary, multimedia and electronic).

CETAC.MEDIA is a research centre on Information and Communication in Technologically Mediated Contexts hosted by the University of Porto (Faculty of Humanities), Portugal. The research agenda of CETAC.MEDIA is four folded:

Information organization and representation

Research on technical and life cycle issues of Information, from production to storage, focused on meta-information, controlled languages, information flow analysis and representation, access and search tools, classification, conceptual maps, information architectures and visualization.

Informational Behavior

Research on Informational needs and user’s attitudes in technologically mediated contexts, adopting an interdisciplinary point of view that crosses Information Science, Computer Science, Cognitive Science and Design.

Communication Processes in New Media

Research on how the characteristics of new media influence communication and socialization processes on digital networks. Special focus is given to online journalism in Portuguese and to usability issues.

Applications of Participatory Media

Research on participatory media applications.Focus is given to specification, prototyping and validation in real contexts of the Information and Communication aspects of the applications. Special attention has been given to applications in Education and Training, Health, Interactive TV, Tourism and Videogames.