Oral and written skills are increasingly considered to be essential tools in the job market for the success of any worker, and are thus called soft skills. Nevertheless, most graduates who enter the labor market experience difficulties in the apprehension of communication, not only with regard to writing, but also in oral communication. These difficulties are also noticeable in the classroom, for instance when students need to participate by expressing their doubts when they have to present research work within the curricular units they attend, or when they have to write their answers in assessment tests. In this paper, we explore the communication skills of students from different graduate degrees (n = 345) in order to understand how they prepare for oral and written communication. We made use of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA), validated by McCroskey, Beatty, Kearney, and Plax (1985), in order to understand students’ oral communication apprehension. To understand the levels of written communication apprehension, we applied the Daly–Miller Writing Apprehension Test (DMWA). We thus analyzed the communicational skills and the communication apprehension of students from social and human sciences courses in order to understand how they prepare for oral and writing communication, and whether there were differences between genders and between different graduate courses regarding communication apprehension. The main results of this research confirm that the students experienced difficulties with and fear of communication, especially for oral communication. Furthermore, the results indicate that female students showed more significant levels of anxiety with regard to oral and written communication than male students. This exploratory study also makes it possible to distinguish areas of communication apprehension according to the different genders, and even with regard to the degree courses students belonged to.

Este artigo pretende averiguar de que forma a dicotomia Esquerda-Direita é um dos elementos tidos em conta no eleitorado, procurando verificar qual a sua compreensão e o seu conhecimento acerca desta díade política. Para isso, recorremos a um inquérito por questionário direcionado para avaliar os valores sociais, económicos e culturais dos cidadãos, de forma a perceber a ideologia política de cada inquirido. As conclusões demonstram que o eleitorado inquirido apresenta dificuldades em compreender, em se orientar e se autoposicionar na escala política Esquerda-Direita.

In a time when new technologies are being used every day, it is natural that they are becoming instruments of political communication. In fact, since the 1990s, new digital devices have been used by political parties for their benefit. Based on this current reality, it was important to study the importance of the Internet for communication and political participation, especially during the electoral campaign for the 2015 Legislative Elections in Portugal. This exploratory study shows that, in fact, the electorate is aware of the importance of the Internet, especially of social networks as facilitating instruments for political participation. However, while it is common to speak of digital democracy, more than half of the respondents did not follow the 2015 election campaign through the tools and platforms provided on Internet by the political parties. Palavras-chave: comunicação política; Internet; democracia digital; participação política.

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Na sociedade moderna, a comunicação é uma condição sine qua non do sucesso das organizações e a comunicação interna assume um papel fundamental para a eficácia organizacional. Nos Municípios, também eles organizações, a comunicação é fundamental, devendo, por isso, ser valorizada, nomeadamente a comunicação interna. Neste sentido, esta investigação explora a importância da comunicação interna nas organizações autárquicas. Assim, definiu-se como objetivos: caracterizar o público interno da organização; identificar os fluxos de comunicação; caracterizarcomo flui a comunicação; identificar e analisar as ferramentas da comunicaçãointerna existentes; identificar os aspetos positivos e negativos da comunicaçãointerna; avaliar como funciona a comunicação interna e contribuir para o aumentode estudos na área da comunicação organizacional.