Communication

Digitalization has significantly impacted modern society, especially the media industry. It has changed the way we deliver messages and led the change of media users, who are now both audience and creator. Digitalization has also catalyzed the prevalence and importance of data. Specifically, in marketing communication, information about audiences is abundant and various. This course explores the new concept of brand communication in the current marketing and media environment from theoretical and practical perspectives, and provides students with diverse applications of experience to brand marketing discipline. 

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course analyzes the way the western media covers the developing world and the humanitarian emergencies. Specifically the course explores the emerging and historical humanitarian narratives, with particular reference to the way in which the activities of NGOs are reported; how we understand and explain faraway disasters; how the media representations of suffering and violence has changed in the post-cold war period and in the digital era; the relationship between media, aid, corporate communication, and branding; and the relationship between power, media, and migration. This course encourages students to think sociologically about a range of issues and “social problems” related to the different ways in which media is used to report on humanitarian situations, and what impact this has. It also serves as an introduction to some important themes and issues within humanitarianism and migration. Areas under study include: the construction of “social problems,” media, ethics, human rights, disaster relief, war, famine, refugee camps, social movements, and NGOs.  A special focus is dedicated to the mediated performances that contribute to create the spectacle of the humanitarian border, which is physically and symbolically enacted by the different actors involved in contemporary management of migration. Moving from the assumption that our awareness of nearly all humanitarian issues is defined by the media, this course looks at the literature associated with humanitarian organizations and the NGO narratives, tracing the imagined and real encounters between solidarity, participation, and citizenship in the context of larger social processes of mediation and globalization. Examining humanitarian communication through various forms of aesthetic activism - documentary, photojournalism, benefit concerts, celebrities, and live blogging, the course explores how the circulation of humanitarian images and narratives impact the peoples it aims to serve, and what can be learned about global inequality from the stories associated with it. The course also focuses on how several news media framed Covid-19 as an invisible enemy, using metaphor of war to describe the current situation. The definition of the emergency as a war conducts inevitably to the identification of an enemy. The hyper-visibility of the war against this invisible enemy leads to a generalized fear of ‘the others’ and to the identification of this invisibility in visible bodies. Finally, the course reflects on long-term implications of the pandemic on mobility justice and what Mbembe (2020) has defined the “right to breath.” There are two versions of this course; this course, UCEAP Course Number 169A and Bologna course number 81782, is associated with the LM in Language, Society and Communication degree programme. The other version, UCEAP Course Number 169B and Bologna course number 75073, is associated with the LM in Sociology and Social Work and LM in Local and Global Development degree programmes.

This course is a study of the principles and boundaries of organizational communication. It examines the techniques of managing corporate communication, the ethical principles in internal communication, and the strategies of external communication.

This course explores a range of topics related to technologies of contemporary digital and social media, with particular attention to understanding technical, historical, ethical and legal issues. Students learn to express themselves effectively with digital media, and especially on the web. Topics include: digital media and communication; understanding SNS; the future of smart digital media; digital broadcasting; human computer interaction and trends of digital media.

This course provides a platform for multiple disciplines to learn about and collaborate on projects that address our societal challenges using the established framework of Design Thinking. These challenges may include climate change, food security, migration, and conflict. Design thinking has its roots in industrial design and engineering but borrows from a variety of disciplines, including ethnography, computer science, psychology, organizational learning, and business. Students who participate in this course look at problems from these alternative perspectives, how they might impact their own discipline, and how their discipline might inform the solution. To achieve this, students work within multidisciplinary teams on projects that are not necessarily aligned to their area of expertise. Students are encouraged to reflect on this experience to better understand their own preferred learning environment and behaviors.

This course builds self-confidence in English public speaking and communication and develops student's English writing skills, as well as the ability to deliver public speeches in English effectively. The course focuses on developing listening, research, and cooperation skills. Course topics include using language; analyzing the audience; selecting a topic and gathering materials; organizing the beginning, middle, and ending of a speech; delivering the speech; speaking to inform; speaking on special occasions; and speaking to persuade.

This course examines the political, economic, cultural factors that create the context in which mass media operate and affect ideological processes in society. It studies the history and structure of the mass media and take a close look at mass media in our society in many forms.