Luca Barra is Full Professor at Università di Bologna, Department of the Arts (DAR). He teaches courses of Television and Digital Media at the first cycle degree in DAMS – Drama, Arts and Music Studies, of Television Production Cultures at the second cycle degree in INCOM – Information, Cultures and Media Organization, and of Contemporary TV Series at the second cycle degree in CITEM – Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production.
His main field is media and television studies, with both an historical and a contemporary perspective, especially aiming at the industrial, production and reception/consumption aspects. His research has mainly focused on television production and distribution cultures, the international circulation of media products (and their national mediations), the history of Italian, European and US television, serial TV dramas, comedy and humour television genres, and the evolution of the contemporary media scenario.
Since 2021, he is coordinator of the second cycle degree in INCOM – Information, Cultures and Media Organization and member of the educational committee of the Collegio Superiore of Università di Bologna. Since 2020, he is member of the scientific committee of the Master in Music Production and Promotion at Università di Bologna. Since 2021 he has been elected in the steering committee of European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) and he is member of the evaluation team for regional projects of the Emilia-Romagna Film Commission. Since 2022 he is vice-chair of the Television Studies section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). Since 2018, he is the communications delegate of the Department of the Arts (including the organization of the DAMS50 celebrations) and a member of the DAMSLab scientific committee. Since 2017, he leads the “Mediating Italy in Global Culture” summer school, in collaboration with Brown University, Dickinson College, Ohio State University, University of Michigan and Wesleyan University. He has been member of the scientific committee of the Collegio Universitario di Torino Renato Einaudi (2020-2022).
He obtained a M.A. in Mass and Multimedia Communication, with honors, at Università degli Studi di Torino (July 2007, supervisor prof. Peppino Ortoleva). He holds a Ph.D. in Communication Cultures at Università Cattolica, Milan (XXIII cycle), with a dissertation titled “Risate in scatola. Storia, mediazioni e percorsi distributivi della situation comedy americana in Italia” (“Canned Laughter. History, Mediations and Distribution Practices of the US TV sitcom in Italy”, tutors prof. Aldo Grasso and Massimo Scaglioni). Later, he has been Post-Doctoral Research Fellow for five years (April 2011-September 2016) at Università Cattolica di Milano, School of Foreign Languages and Literatures, contributing to the activities of the Communication and Performing Arts Department and teaching courses on Media Economics, International Media Systems and Television History and Criticism. He worked as a senior researcher at Ce.R.T.A., the Research Centre on Television and Audio-visual Media, and as the didactic coordinator of the Master “FareTv. Gestione, sviluppo, comunicazione” (TV Management, Development, Communication) at ALMED – Alta Scuola in Media, Comunicazione e Spettacolo, at Università Cattolica (2011-2016), where he still teaches the Television Scheduling course. From 2016 to 2019, he has been fixed-term senior assistant professor at the Department of the Arts of Università di Bologna, where he taught Radio and Television History and Digital Media courses. From 2019 to 2023, he has been associate professor there.
He published four books: La programmazione televisiva. Palinsesto e on demand (Television Programming. Scheduling and on demand, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2022); La sitcom. Genere, evoluzione, prospettive (The Sitcom. Genre, Evolutions, Perspectives, Carocci, Roma 2020); Palinsesto. Storia e tecnica della programmazione televisiva (Scheduling. History and Technique of Television Programming, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2015, with seven reprints); and Risate in scatola. Storia, mediazioni e percorsi distributivi della situation comedy americana in Italia (Canned Laughter. History, Mediations and Distribution Practices of the US TV Sitcom in Italy, Vita e Pensiero, Milan 2012). He co-edited six collections: A European Television Fiction Renaissance. Premium Production Models and Transnational Circulation (Routledge, London 2021, with Massimo Scaglioni); SuperTele. Come guardare la televisione (SuperTele. How to Watch Television, minimum fax, Roma 2021, with Fabio Guarnaccia); Media-Storie. Lezioni indimenticate di Peppino Ortoleva (Media-Histories. Unforgotten Lectures by Peppino Ortoleva, Viella, Roma 2020, with Giuliana C. Galvagno); Taboo Comedy. Television and Controversial Humour (Palgrave, London 2016, with Chiara Bucaria); Backstage. Studi sulla produzione dei media in Italia (Backstage. Studies on Media Production in Italy, Unicopli, Milan 2016, with Tiziano Bonini and Sergio Splendore); and Tutta un’altra fiction. La serialità pay in Italia e nel mondo. Il modello Sky (A Different Fiction. Pay TV Series in Italy and Worldwide. The Sky Model, Carocci, Roma 2013, with Massimo Scaglioni). He co-edited special issues on the history of the television commercialization in Europe (in Comunicazioni sociali and VIEW. Journal of European TV History and Culture), on the global circulation and national mediations of television shows (in Journal of Popular Television) and on the connection between serial narratives and technology (in SERIES. International Journal of TV Serial Narratives), on television crime (in Cinema&Cie), on actorship as a profession (in The Italianist), on the daily lives of digital technologies (in il Mulino) and on the foreign circulation of Italian audiovisuals (in La valle dell'Eden). He collaborated with Aldo Grasso and Cecilia Penati to Storia critica della televisione italiana (Critical History of Italian Television, III voll., il Saggiatore, Milano 2019) and edited the Italian edition of Marshall McLuhan’s Playboy Interview (Franco Angeli, Milano 2013) and of The Media Studies Toolkit by Michael Z. Newman (with Simone Natale, Einaudi, Torino 2023). He wrote several essays in edited books and national and international scientific journals (Critical Studies in Television, International Journal of Cultural Studies, VIEW, SERIES, Comunicazioni sociali, Bianco e Nero, Cinergie, Cinéma&Cie, Fata Morgana, Imago, Schermi, Studi culturali, Problemi dell’informazione, Sociologia della comunicazione, Nuovi argomenti).
He is principal investigator of the “ATLas – Atlas of Local Televisions” research project (PRIN 2020). He is associated investigator of the “F-ACTOR. Forms of Contemporary Media Professional Acting. Training, Recruitment and Management, Social Discourses in Italy. 2000-2020” research project (PRIN 2017, led by Francesco Pitassio). He has been part of the research team of the Università di Bologna local unit in the “International Circulation of Italian Cinema (CInCIt)” research project (PRIN 2015, led by Massimo Scaglioni). He collaborated, including the full responsibility of a task, deliverable and policy brief, to the “DETECt – Detecting Transcultural Identity in European Popular Crime Narratives” research project, funded by the EU in the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant Agreement n. 770151, led by Monica Dall’Asta). In 2018-2020, he has been the principal investigator of the research project “DAC – Distribuzione, adattamento, circolazione. Un modello industriale e culturale della televisione anglofona in Italia” (Distribution, Adaptation, Circulation. An Industrial and Cultural Model for Anglophone Television in Italy), funded by Università di Bologna with an AlmaIdea grant. He was granted the ISA Topic 2019 grant by Università di Bologna for a project on media identities, popular music, television and populism (with Giacomo Manzoli, Marco Santoro and Marco Solaroli).
Over the 2020-2022 period he is the board of directors of Italian culture and politics journal Il Mulino. He is editor-in-chief of VIEW. Journal of European TV History and Culture, managing editor of SERIES. International Journal of Serial Narratives, part of the editorial board of Critical Studies in Television, in the direction committee of Comunicazioni sociali/CS Journal, Simultanea. Journal of Italian Media and Pop Culture and La valle dell’Eden/East of Eden, and Studi culturali. He works as a reviewer for several other journals and scientific publications. With Fabio Guarnaccia, he is the series director of “SuperTele”, a collection of Italian translations of television and media studies foreign books for the publisher minimum fax. He is editorial consultant of TV studies journal and website Link. Idee per la tv.
He attended as speaker several national and international conferences, and has given lectures and seminars in various Italian and foreign universities. In April and May 2023 he has been invited as visiting professor at Brown University, in the US, and at Université de Montreal, in Canada. In March 2018 he has been a visiting professor at University of Roheampton, London. He has been invited at Lund University in Sweden, University of Cordoba in Argentina, Indiana University and City University of New York in the United States, and Università della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. Since 2010, he teaches at the George Mason University (US) summer school at Università degli Studi di Milano. He organized many international conferences, including four editions of the “Media Mutations” series (on modes of production in contemporary TV series, television formats, cultures and logics of entertainment, and the state of the art of broadcasting) and others on digital myths, film and television acting, digital audiovisual archives, the history of video cultures, and international circulation of media. Since 2016, he is a member of the NECS conference committee. He regularly participates to national, European and global research networks, including CUC – Consulta Universitaria del Cinema, NECS – European Network of Cinema and Media Studies, ECREA – European Communication Research and Education Association, SCMS – Society for Cinema and Media Studies, ICA – International Communication Association, Global Internet TV Consortium.
