28603 - Mass Media Education

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student: - knows theoretical notions with a strongly interdisciplinary character on "Media Education" (sociology of media, social psychology, media pedagogy and didactics); - knows the main theoretical frameworks related to the development and process of socialization to media through daily interaction; - knows the processes of production, distribution, classification and reception of the main multimedia cultural products. In particular, he/she possesses knowledge related to television, video games and animated cinema, websites; - is able to analyze multimedia products from a pedagogical point of view; - is able to evaluate educational projects centered on the use/consumption of multimedia tools; - is able to design paths of media use within cultural institutions aimed at developmental age users; - is able to interpret and reflect on cultural industry processes and products through relevant scientific categories; - is able to design and present a project for the production of multimedia messages.

Course contents

The 48-hour course, delivered in traditional face-to-face mode, is divided into blocks:

• theoretical elements: where theoretical constructs will be presented to frame the fundamental terms and concepts of the disciplinary field of "media education";
• which competences for media education: where the skills needed to design and manage interventions in the field of media education will be presented;
• theoretical and practical insights related to different media: in particular, the world of social media, the world of news media, and video games, comics, and digital story telling will be explored;
• designing media education interventions: where practical tools for designing educational interventions in media education will be introduced;
• presenting practical tools for building media products: in this block, with a more practical approach, some digital tools for building media products useful for designing educational activities in the field of media education will be presented.

Readings/Bibliography

he syllabus is the same for all students (attending, non-attending, semi-frequenting...) and includes the following texts (books, articles, official documents and materials made available during lectures):


Mandatory books for all:

• Rivoltella, P. C. (2020). Nuovi alfabeti. Educazione e culture nella società post-mediale. Brescia: Morcelliana Scholé. (totale pag.: 218)
• Buckingham, D. (2020). Un manifesto per la media education. Milano: Mondadori Università. (totale pag.: 88)
• Colombo, F. (2020). Ecologia dei media: Manifesto per una comunicazione gentile. Milano: Vita e Pensiero. (totale pag.: 108)

One of your choice from these books:

• Mingrino, M. (2014). Le potenzialità educative del videogioco. Roma: Aracne. (totale pag.: 136)
• Averame, M. C. (2018). Riconoscere le fake news in classe: Percorsi per una comunicazione consapevole in rete. Pearson. (totale pag.: 130).
• Carenzio, A., Farinacci, E. (2023). Dentro Black Mirror. Media, socialità, educazione. Scholé.

Papers/Essays:

• Soriani, A. (2021). Raccontare insieme il lockdown: l’uso del Digital Storytelling per favorire il rientro nella scuola dell’infanzia. Infanzia, 2, pp. 119 – 124 – Disponibile in piattaforma
• Soriani, A. (2021). Videogiocare come esercizio del pensiero: la necessità pedagogica di promuovere una cultura del videogioco. In S. Demozzi (a cura di) Contesti per pensare. Riflessioni su pedagogica, indagine filosofica e comunità di ricerca. Milano: FrancoAngeli – Disponibile in piattaforma

Other materials to be found on the Virtuale platform.

Teaching methods

The course will be developed through lectures, exercises (individual and/or group), discussions and comparisons on media materials, and project work (individual and/or group).

Assessment methods

The 2-hour exam will consist of a written test aimed at assessing:

• the understanding of the exam texts and materials on the platform ("short essay" and "open questions")
• the ability to design a media education intervention ("case study" or "development of a project work")

The evaluation criteria will be:

• relevance,
• argumentative clarity,
• lexical appropriateness,
• completeness,
• consistency of the project with the principles of media education

Teaching tools

• Documents and official reports from Italian and European bodies;
• Multimedia materials (text, video, images);
• Exercises present in the Virtual platform;
• Seminars with experts.

Office hours

See the website of Alessandro Soriani