(1) Semiotics of digital media. I have been studying digital media
since the mid '90s, particularly focusing on these subjects: usability, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), social networking. Since 2005, I have been concentrating my research activity on the
so-called social networking: from the on-line 3D
environments to the most recent social networking practices on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
(2) Semiotics of political communication. I have been doing research in this field since 2005, particularly focusing on Italian and American case studies. The concepts and methodologies I have been using in my analyses of political communication come from general semiotics and the philosophy of language, on the one hand, and from contemporary sociological and political studies, on the other. From the end of 2012 to beginning of 2013, I applied the semiotic and philosophical-analytical methodology to the campaigns for the Italian political elections of February 2013.
(3) Semiotics of consumption. I am particularly interested in analysing and criticizing the
(visual, audio-visual, multimedia) contemporary mass representation
of the human thin and young body. Indeed this is the key
model on which, over the last three decades, the multinational
companies have been creating mass life styles and
consumption practices. In particular, over the last ten years I have been trying to
reconstruct this contemporary mythology (in Roland Barthes'
sense), by analysing advertising and social campaigns, TV programs,
videoclips, and by examining their social effects. I have been
paying particular attention to the social practices of food
consumption, body care and body training. My methodological and theoretical perspective is
interdisciplinary, inasmuch as it aims at integrating the
semiotic approach with contributions from the sociology
of consumption and the history of culture.
(4) Semiotics of industrial design. Semiotics offers several conceptual tools for understanding how ordinary objects, and software and hardware interfaces have been designed and are used, and for understanding which meanings they have in certain social contexts and which meanings they acquire or lose on different occasions. My research activity was focused on this field especially from 2006 to 2010.
