1. HOME
  2. Research centres
  3. 01 Lab - Journalism in the Digital Age. Data Science, New virtual Communities, Ethics of Algorithms

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

The Research Center’s Concept

The combination of information distribution across digital platforms and the increasingly frequent prevalence of virtual communities over physical ones makes reflection on how news regarding events is disseminated in post-analogue societies both useful and necessary.

The concept of truth—or substantial truth of facts, as stated in the founding law of the Order of Journalists—gives way to opinions facilitated by the well-known and widely identified mechanism of confirmation bias.

Individuals find themselves acting as solitary gatekeepers of the information directed at them. Physical communities yield to virtual ones that continuously form and dissolve without interruption.

These communities of meaning are based on mechanisms borrowed from computer language, grounded in binary logic: zero/one, black/white, like/dislike.

Digital platform algorithms oversee the distribution of information, acting as "meta-gatekeepers" for individuals. Understanding their mechanisms and interpreting or reconstructing the underlying ethics lifts the veil on the processes of information and, consequently, disinformation.

 Three Fields of Research

  1. First: A collaboration with IULM’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, aimed at analyzing and describing the creation processes of the algorithms that govern content distribution. The goal is to determine the impact of software creators' personal ethics on algorithm development.

  2.  Second: Identifying the decision-making process and information handling that lead to whether news, feature stories, or investigative reports are published across media outlets. The goal is to understand and outline this decision-making process and to what extent software influences not only the content reaching readers, but also the determination of what is news-worthy within newsrooms themselves.
  1. Third: An investigation into the forms and significance of the physical and digital extensions of newspapers and other news media. These extensions increasingly represent the main point of contact for readers, listeners, and viewers with a media brand, thereby influencing the construction of the outlet’s editorial identity and audience engagement dynamics. The goal is to map the current state of these transformations while identifying potential future trajectories.

 Within this third research strand, the 01 Lab Research Center is hosting the conference "Newspapers Beyond Newspapers, Media Beyond Media: Building Communities Between Physical and Digital Extensions," which will take place on December 17, 2026, at IULM University. The Call for Papers is available here.

 Initial Actions


Director

  • Daniele Manca, PhD (Strategic Director, Master's in Journalism, IULM University)

Scientific Committee

  •  Daniele Manca, PhD (Strategic Director, Master's in Journalism, IULM University)
  •  Prof. Paolo Giovannetti (Full Professor of Contemporary Italian Literature, IULM University)
  •  Prof. Guido Formigoni (Full Professor of Contemporary History, IULM University)
  •  Marta Lucia Zanichelli, PhD (Academic Coordinator, Master's in Journalism, IULM University)
  •  Mauro Crippa, PhD (Director General of News Content, Mediaset Group)
  •  Prof. Anthony Adornato (Associate Professor and Department Chair, Broadcast and Digital Journalism, Syracuse University, New York)
  •  Prof. Valentina Pisanty (Associate Professor of Semiotics, University of Bergamo)
  •  Dario Boemia, PhD (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, IULM University)