'Giampaolo Fabris' Department of Communication, Arts and Media

The 'Giampaolo Fabris' Department of Communication, Arts and Media promotes a kind of academic research based on a unique idea and practice of modern humanism. From the domain of arts to the domain of literature, from surveys on society to those on cinema, television, theatre, music and fashion, the wide range of issues develops methodologies marked by interdisciplinarity and, at the same time, intermediality. The necessary specialism connected to academic approaches, anyhow, tends to privilege some invariant references: i.e the production and consumption of cultural contents and forms (with particular attention to new technologies), old and new urban identities, recent social identities, information strategies and biases, and finally Artificial Intelligence. This type of approach does not imply that the historical perspective is neglected; on the contrary, it deeply characterizes the cultural activities of several members of the Department. This form of historicism, nevertheless, is mostly realized through the valorization of the media interweavings, as a peculiar characteristic of contemporaneity.

Within such a framework, it is necessary to emphasize the role of operational and professionalizing skills related to the considerable number of adjunct professors who collaborate with the Department. Their active presence in the “roots” of our society is the guarantee of a necessary, almost physiological orientation towards the Third Mission, that is, to the conversion of research in terms of practical spin-offs.

Since 2017, the Department has supported a considerable amount of research, a summary description of which can be found below, in the "Departmental Projects" section.

Also since 2017, a collaborative relationship with the important periodical Testo a fronte has begun.

A collection of departmental publications has been active since 2018.

Also worth mentioning is both the activity of IUPS (IULM Research Group on Periodical Studies), which acts in the domain of periodical studies with an international outlook, and the activity of the research group on "Milano e la memoria", which also affects the Third Mission.

Two Research Centres are connected to the Department:

- Centre for Visual Studies
- 01Lab- Journalism in the Digital Age Data Science. New virtual Communities, Ethics of Algorithms.

Department Sections

In addition to the Director, the Department is governed by a Deputy Director and a Council. In order to reflect academic specialisms, two Sections are active: 'Arts and Society' and 'Narrative, Visual, Media and Performing Arts', each of which is coordinated by a professor.

Members of the Council

Simona Moretti: Director
Luisella Farinotti: Deputy Director
Fabio Vittorini
Mauro Ferraresi
Marta Zanichelli

Sections

• "Arts and Society" Section

Coordinator: Luisa Damiano

The research promoted by the scholars of this Section privileges, first and foremost, the observation of social phenomena from the perspective of communication. This means investigating – also in an empirical manner – public behaviours, general features of information and of its biases. A specifical attention is devoted to consumption, lifestyles and cultural attitudes. The focus on new technologies and on the characteristics of Web 2.0 is enhanced by studies on applications of artificial intelligence. Secondly, contemporary art and its metamorphoses in a media context are investigated too, and at the same time the rootedness of arts in a metropolis like Milan is object of a particular attention. Thirdly, the department funds research on the theme of complexity and on the dynamics of epistemological self-transformation of scientific and technological intelligibility.

The following teachers are affiliated to the section:

Nello Barile
Tommaso Casini
Luisa Damiano
Anna Luigia De Simone
Guido Di Fraia
Mauro Ferraresi
Francesco Galofaro
Sofia Gnoli
Hagen Lehmann
Anna Manzato
Andrea Miconi
Patrizia Mello
Elisabetta Modena
Simona Moretti
Matteo Pirola
Maria Angela Polesana
Elisabetta Risi
Emanuela Susca
Vincenzo Trione

• ‘Narrative, Visual, Media and Performing Arts' Section

Coordinator: Daniela Cardini

In this Section the studies concern, firstly, cinema and television, approached from an original perspective that combines attention to theoretical issues, historical investigation, and current affairs. Secondly, the connection between cinema and literature, between cinema (television) and music, between theatre and new media, etc. - i.e. the analysis of a series of media interweavings - represents a characteristic and innovative feature of this kind of research. Thirdly, the narrative characteristics accompanying inter- and trans- media phenomena is in the focus of specific attention, even from a methodological point of view; and this is coupled with a series of original surveys in the interdisciplinary field of periodical studies.

The following teachers are affiliated to the section:

Simone Arcagni
Matteo Bittanti
Daniela Cardini
Andrea Chiurato
Ilenia De Bernardis
Luisella Farinotti
Francesco Fava
Ester Fuoco
Valentina Garavaglia
Paolo Giovannetti
Elena Gipponi
Maria Chiara Grizzaffi
Stefano Locati
Stefano Lombardi Vallauri
Filippo Pennacchio
Antonio Scurati
Fabio Vittorini
Edoardo Zuccato