Ateneo - UPO

What we present here is an introduction to political communication, especially interested in two perspectives:
a) contemporary social movements as a new form of politics who try to introduces new codes for partecipation and democratization of societies;
b) political communication in a digital environment.

Altieri e Raffini, "La nuova politica. Mobilitazioni, movimenti e conflitti in Italia", Napoli: EdiSES, 2014 [all the book ecept chapters 4 and 6]
Mazzoleni (ed.), "Introduzione alla comunicazione politica", Bologna: il Mulino, 2021 [only 5 chapters: nr. 8, 10, 11, 12 and 15]

The course's aim is to stimulate analytical reasoning about the contemporary digital democracy, political and social movements communication. Moving from the ideas of mass, crowd, public and their interactions through a process of protest and democratization, the course will also introduce the idea of network society opposed to broadcast society, in order to offer students a sociological toolkit to better investigate our contemporary political environment.

No background knowledge is required

The course will employ a mix of teaching methodologies, including direct teaching, open discussions, collective analysis of videos and news narratives.

Students with physical disabilities, Learning Disabilities or Special Education Needs can request specific services and tools via the Staff Sviluppo e Coordinamento Carriere e Servizi alle Studentesse e agli Studenti, consulting the University webpage: https://www.uniupo.it/en/services/servicesstudents-physical-or-learning-disabilities Students with disabilities, learning disabilities or special education needs, once they have contacted the University Staff, can refer to the tutor in charge of the course to define the examination modalities, concerning academic aspects.

The exam consists in a 20 minutes discussion. Students will be required to show their skills in both synthetically framing an issue or a book and debating critical and more specific aspects, using appropriate concepts. Their ability to create analogies with other issues will also be appreciated.

What we present here is an introduction to political communication, especially interested in two perspectives:
a) contemporary social movements as a new form of politics who try to introduces new codes for partecipation and democratization of societies;
b) political communication in a digital environment.
This course intends to investigate on some urgent question of contemporary political communication. As an introduction, two conceptual blocks will be presented:
a) the forms of social aggregation (mass, crowd, group, public), by looking at their tranformation from one to another, and at the issues of emotionality and identity;
b) the raise of a network society that pretends to be open but is shaped by the logic of the digital platforms and its cohexistence with a hierarchical broadcasting society who's still alive.
It is within these frameworks that social movements and political contemporary actions and communications will be investigated.

The main learning results that are expected to be achieved by students are as follows:
- understanding the challenges for democracy in the digital environment;
- knowing contemporary social movements and being able to explain dynamics of success or lack of success of their claims;
- understanding the role of active digital publics and the strategic political use of the public opinion in contemporary democracies.