Università Roma Tre

The course aims to provide students with the critical and theoretical tools to orient themselves in the modern communication society and to understand the interaction between historical and technological components on the one hand and cultural and social on the other.
The first part is devoted to analysing the main theories and the most critical interpretative models developed within the research on mass communications, particularly regarding the sociological field. Particular attention will be paid to the modern digital society, analyzing its theories and the social impact of its most recent phenomena: from the spread of fake news to the progressive platforming of different areas and sectors of society, from issues relating to data processing and privacy protection to the development and risks associated with the development of the most recent artificial intelligence applications such as Chat GPT.
In the concluding part, dedicated to the analysis of the format of the political talk-show, the course explores the history of Italian television and its languages in the various political-social phases and seasons of the country and its main effects on the behaviour and identities of the Italians.

The exam program and reference textbooks will be communicated at the beginning of the course.

The course in Media Sociology aims to provide students with a knowledge of the main social and cultural changes that followed the evolution of "traditional" media (press, radio, television) and later of the new media, focusing on the relationship between technology, the individual and society. The first part of the course is focused on the sociological studies developed during the 20th century in concomitance with the development of mass media, paying attention to the main actors involved in the communication processes: the sender, the message, the receiver, and the effects. The second part is set on the social, cultural, individual and interpersonal transformations due to the development of the Internet and social network sites, which are spaces opening up to new opportunities but at the same time as agents of new inequalities. In this context, the main contradictions and anomalies, benefits and opportunities generated by the new information and communication technologies, as well as the gradual transformation of the social and cultural models - which led to the "platform society" - will be analysed, starting from the discussion of some known "cases" and "objects", such as the WikiLeaks and Cambridge Analytica cases, the advent of ChatGPT and the use of AI.

Paccagnella, L. (2020). Sociologia della comunicazione nell'era digitale (nuova edizione - copertina azzurra). Bologna: il Mulino (solo capitoli 3, 4, 5).
Novelli, E. (2016). La democrazia del talk-show. Storia di un genere che ha cambiato la televisione, la politica, l’Italia. Roma: Carocci.
Materiali integrativi sul canale Moodle del corso.