93624 - Digital Culture and Visual Journalism (LM)

Academic Year 2020/2021

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Information, Cultures and Media Organisation (cod. 5698)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, students are supposed to know the central theoretical issues and relevant research methods on digital culture and visual journalism. Moreover, they are familiar with a number of empirical research projects carried out in the last two decades in various countries on digital photojournalism, citizen photojournalism, data visualization, and visual social media.


Course contents

The course is articulated into two sections. At the end, students (individually or in team) are invited to present their own analysis of a case study to be preliminary discussed with the professor.

The first section focuses on the theoretical state of the art. It defines core concepts from the social research on the digital innovation of the practices of production, circulation, and consumption of visual information. The aim is building a conceptual and methodological tool-kit.

The second section focuses on the results of various empirical research projects carried out over the last two decades. Their research objects deal with the role of smartphones and social media in the rearticulation of visual communicative practices (from citizen journalism to selfies), the visual dimension of the fake news and the debate of the post-production of news photography, the new conceptions of value and quality in visual journalism, and the social and algorithmic mechanisms of selection and promotion of visual contents within the contemporary ecosystem of digital platforms.

Readings/Bibliography

One book and a few papers (available online in the course page):

  • Gunthert, A. (2015) L’immagine condivisa. La fotografia digitale, trad. it. Roma, Contrasto, 2016.
  • Van Dijck, J., Poell, T. and de Waal, M. (2018) News, in: Platform Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  • Boccia Artieri, G. (Ed.) (2015) Gli effetti sociali del web. Forme della comunicazione e metodologie della ricerca online, Milano, FrancoAngeli (Only: Parte II. Social Network come fenomeni visualmente rilevanti).
  • Marino, G. (2018), #instamoments of the Flat Earth. Come le affordance di Instagram modellano la diffusione dell'informazione cospirazionista, in “Problemi dell’informazione”, 3, pp. 447-478.
  • Solaroli, M. (2017) News photography and the digital (r)evolution: continuity and change in the practices, styles, norms and values of photojournalism, in: J. Tong and S.-H. Lo (Eds.), Digital Technology and Journalism. An International Comparative Perspective, London, Palgrave, pp. 47-70.

Teaching methods

Due to the restrictions imposed by the current health emergency, in March 2021 teachings will be carried out online only, via TEAMS. In April 2021, teachings might be carried out with traditional methods: in that case, the professor will always be present in the designated classroom, students will alternate in attendance according to a schedule of shifts defined through the "Presente" app, and it will always be possibile to connect remotely and follow live lessons via the TEAMS platform.

PLEASE NOTE: Given the pace of change of the current health emergency, students are invited to check Professor Solaroli's homepage for possibile updates on teaching methods.

Assessment methods

At the of the course students will get a pass certificate only if they attended at least two thirds of the meetings, and delivered the final presentation (individually or in team) in class.

Office hours

See the website of Marco Solaroli

SDGs

Good health and well-being Quality education Gender equality Responsible consumption and production

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.