PRIN PNRR 2022 - DISCUI - Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione, Studi Umanistici e Internazionali

Countering Online Radicalization and incivility in ITaly: from fringe to mainstream - CORIT

Breve descrizione, finalità e risultati attesi: The use of social media by individuals and organizations to target individuals for political and social change has become increasingly common as the Internet has become a central tool in information diets and mobile devices are increasingly accessible. Coupled with this is a growth of incivility in online public discourse related to political issues and citizenship rights damaging to our democracies. In this context, "fringe platforms" such as Telegram, Gab, Odysee and BitChute have become prime destinations for extremist thought and conspiracy theorists. Research project CORIT will explore the relationship between toxicity of online public speech and forms of political radicalization of user-citizens and will analyze these processes in digital platforms, looking at how uncivil discourses transit between fringe platforms, mainstream platforms and legacy media. To achieve these goals, CORIT project will rely on a mixed-methods research design a) investigating online incivility and political radicalization in fringe platform through an ethnographic approach by looking at case studies from Telegram, b) then defining a list of radicalization-related news items to be later tracked within Twitter (via big data approach) - so as to compare whether how discursive forms of incivility about politics are produced at this level - and c) compare the Telegram-Twitter news diffusion with the legacy media agenda - in a perspective of intermedia genda - in order to more fully explore the influence between the media ecosystem and radicalization discourses. CORIT project has a distinctive impact because it aims to understand the generation of toxicity and not just its circulation, thus focusing on preventing such dynamics.

Importo totale del finanziamento: € 224.650

Importo totale UniUrb: € 80.930

Periodo: 30/11/2023 – 29/11/2025

Struttura UniUrb di riferimento: Dipartimento Scienze della Comunicazione, Studi Umanistici e Internazionali (DISCUI) 

Referente UniUrb: Prof. Giovanni Boccia Artieri

Codice Progetto: P202293P5P_001

CUP: H53D23009660001

Cultural Welfare Ecosystems for Wellbeing: mapping semantics and practices, co-designing tools and raising awareness

Breve descrizione, finalità e risultati attesi: The project has two aims. On one side, it intends to enrich the debate around the relationship between art and wellbeing, focusing on the recent idea of cultural welfare. In particular, it aims to go beyond the prevailing focus on health and on individuals, reframing it from the perspective of cultural welfare ecosystems capable of virtuously impacting the forms of life, living, producing, consuming and organizing. On the other side, the project is dedicated to improving the knowledge and awareness of the potentialities and challenges of cultural welfare practices through collecting data and promoting an active and participatory knowledge production process at the local level in different Italian territories. It is argued that the combination of these two main research tracks can pursue the elaboration of place-based and integrated policies oriented toward promoting inclusive growth of territories. The project assumes three main analytical perspectives. The first one concerns cultural participation, linked to the development of cultural capabilities, which are affected by inequalities in terms of material, cognitive and social resources. The second relates to social innovation to answer societal needs by improving social relations and empowerment. Key aspects of social innovation are the role played by the territory as a place where new social practices can emerge, participation as a process of knowledge production, and the combinations of actors based on collaboration and partnerships. A third dimension concerns the paradigm of cultural value and its relation to non-economic categories and to "Institutional Value," which refers to how the organizations behave when interacting with citizens and the territory and to the generation of growth and resilience of the local community. The project is articulated in four phases. The first one is dedicated to a background research aiming at enriching the understanding of cultural welfare through a review of the academic literature and identifying the social semantics at the EU level by analyzing policy documents and reports on the link between art/culture and wellbeing. The second one is dedicated to mapping cultural welfare projects in Italy in terms of attributes and challenges with the aim of achieving a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the Italian context. The third one is dedicated to the promotion of a “place-based” knowledge about how local cultural welfare ecosystems can work in 6 territories (three in the city of Bologna and three in the Marche region) through an action-research aiming at setting up contexts for co-learnings and sharing knowledge on how to develop cultural welfare ecosystems and on inclusive monitoring tools. The fourth phase, developed along the project, is dedicated to the dissemination at the national and international level of the Italian debate on cultural welfare pursued by the project.

Importo totale del finanziamento: € 262.283

Importo totale UniUrb: € 122.349

Periodo: 30/11/2023 – 29/11/2025

Struttura UniUrb di riferimento: Dipartimento Scienze della Comunicazione, Studi Umanistici e Internazionali (DISCUI) 

Referente UniUrb: Prof.ssa Laura Gemini

Codice Progetto: P2022494M3_002

CUP: H53D23009600001

WokeIt. Investigating Representation, Inclusivity and Social Responsibility in Rai’s Fictional Audiovisual Productions (2015-2022)

Breve descrizione, finalità e risultati attesi: “WokeIt. Investigating Representation, Inclusivity and Social Responsibility in Rai’s Fictional Audiovisual Productions (2015-2022)” aims to investigate critically the strategies of inclusiveness and representation of minorities in fictional audiovisual content produced by Rai Fiction and Rai Cinema, the production companies owned by Italian public service broadcaster Rai. Through the interdisciplinary analysis of policies, industrial practices, on-screen representations, and the modes of circulation and reception of Rai-produced (or co-produced) TV series and movies since 2015, the project is designed to develop a systemic framework that can critically read and analyze the level of social responsibility and actual relevance of the public service broadcaster’s industrial and narrative strategies of representation and inclusion. In other words, we ask: does Rai’s strategy constitute a meaningful and effective model of corporate social responsibility or is it another case of “-washing”? In order to develop an innovative systemic framework to analyze Rai’s diversity and inclusion strategies in fictional representation, both in films and television fiction, the project implements interdisciplinary tools, methodologies and frameworks that use necessarily diverse and all-encompassing approaches – moreover reflected by the teams’ composition and expertise. The three RUs’ work will be based on a constant dialogue among film and television studies, economics and political economy, media studies, production and industry studies, and cultural studies. The project analyses three main interconnected levels:

Production: Rai’s business strategies and policies driving its choices on diversity representation, as well as its diversity communication rhetorics.

Representation: Rai’s representation strategies, visual rhetorics and stereotypes.

Circulation and reception: the circulation patterns of Rai Fiction and Rai Cinema content from the perspective of inclusive representation agendas, as well as the common critic and audience responses to the texts.

This approach seeks to interconnect the otherwise segmented research in film and television studies, moreover shedding new light on Rai’s production companies – that have otherwise been little considered in the literature. It also aims at the integration of representation practices within the economic, industrial, political and social-cultural system of Italian media, reflecting on the concrete relevance of inclusive representation strategies, thus leading to the re-examination of the role of Rai as public broadcasting service in the complex contemporary scenario.

Importo totale del finanziamento: € 221.877

Importo totale UniUrb: € 56.910

Periodo: 30/11/2023 – 29/11/2025

Struttura UniUrb di riferimento: Dipartimento Scienze della Comunicazione, Studi Umanistici e Internazionali (DISCUI) 

Referente UniUrb: Prof. Dominic Francis Graham Holdaway

Codice Progetto: P2022NR9PW_002

CUP: H53D23009290001

SeMaTA - Semantic Mapping Through Archives for the safeguard, valorization, dissemination and transmission of Cultural Heritage in Libya

Breve descrizione, finalità e risultati attesi: The situation of Cultural Heritage in Libya is extremely problematic,both due to recent political events and as a result of issues related to looting and illicit traffic of antiquities.Often it is impossible to‘save’artifacts from the illicit market because they are not published.The conservation and dissemination of the ethno-archaeological and anthropological heritage is at risk because the political changes in the country are causing a gradual loss of traditions,identity markers and cultural and historical landscapes.The current COVID19 pandemic situation has resulted in a major lack of access to data,reports and libraries.A pilot project of digitization of important unpublished documents of numerous archaeological Italian missions as well as historical publications in order to create an open-source digital library and archive on Libyan Cultural Heritage represents an important resource for reconstructing historical events and the identity of a culturally devastated country,and for mapping and cataloging the immense archaeological and historical heritage still laying in inaccessible archives.The aim of the project is to create a digital GIS-based,open data archive using a semantic approach,creating a framework for future archaeological data collections.The data derive from the historical archives of several institutions currently collaborating in a network.The results of the curation and mapping of the records from the archives,as well as the digitization of publications,will then be organized as digital archive and an open source library,closely linked to a webGIS.These features allow constant and unlimited possibilities for updating records,as well as the management of the data in a multilingual project.The project guarantees a wide dissemination of documents,publications,data and resources,which will help facilitate local training programs for specialists,in collaboration with Italian and other foreign institutions. It will also aid with the monitoring of cultural heritage that is under threat from vandalism,urban encroachment and looting,as well as with tracing the illicit traffic of antiquities.The training is a necessary step of the project,in order to create locally highly specialized archaeologists,technicians and scholars.It will also support lectures,courses,events and webinars in schools,local Institutions such as the Board of the Libyan UNESCO sites,and the cultural and youth associations,which are very active in Libya.This approach will be highly effective for the wider dissemination of information and the consequent social rehabilitation and recovery of cultural identity.The historical and socio-cultural value of these archives presents Italian Missions with a moral duty for the preservation,transmission and dissemination of not only the data and information,but also the reports,memories and events relating to Italian archaeology in Libya,and promoting the important role of scholars such as Halbherr,Oliverio,Gismondi & so on

Importo totale del finanziamento: € 231.000

Importo totale UniUrb: € 69.300

Periodo: 30/11/2023 – 29/11/2025

Struttura UniUrb di riferimento: Dipartimento Scienze della Comunicazione, Studi Umanistici e Internazionali (DISCUI) 

Referente UniUrb: Prof. Oscar Mei

Codice Progetto: P20224WXJK_001

CUP: H53D23009190001