PanMeMic Manifesto: making meaning in the Covid-19 pandemic and the future of social interaction

This manifesto stems from a transmedia initiative for collective research designed to shape-from the bottom-up-a socially responsive and responsible culture of inquiry, in observing, recording, sharing and reflecting on the changes to communication and interaction caused by the COVID-19 crisis and their enduring effects post-pandemic. The objectives of the manifesto are (a) to identify key changes in communication and interaction practices during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and (b) to offer a blueprint for an innovative methodology involving academics and non-academics in collective research into these and any future changes to the communication landscape across different socio-cultural contexts. The manifesto presents: (1) the factors that make changes in communication and interaction during the COVID-19 pandemic topical for research; (2) the coordinates of these changes; (3) questions that these changes raise; (4) a proposal for a methodology that complements established research methods to understand these changes; and (5) preliminary data on the activities that the research collective PanMeMic has conducted in its first two months of existence.