Authors:Andrea Lombardinilo Abstract: This proposal further investigates the metaphor of "vacuum packed" sports outlined by Jean Baudrillard in reference to the closure of the stadium to the supporters when Real Madrid and Naples played the Champions league match on 16 September 1987. The gamewas heldbehind closed doors for safety reasons. Media broadcasting of that event inspired Baudrillard's reflections on the "hyperrealism of our world", inasmuch as it is nourished by symbolic simulacra linked to ubiquitous "advertising and media semiologization". This phenomenon also deals with the "disappearance of art" and the "transparence of evil" in the era of televised conflict.The disaster of the Heysel Stadium in Brussels (29 May 1985) appears even now as further proof of television's referential power triggered by the perception of risk and vulnerability. In line with McLuhan's mediology and Barthes' semiology, Baudrillard foresaw the imaginary of "vacuum packed" events that have lost their social and symbolic flair due to a shift in our media consumption.
Authors:Emiliano Ilardi Abstract: The goal of the article is to show the reasons why, starting from the fifth-century BC, Athens decides to transform itself into a marine and imperialist power. It is this thalassocratic choice that, according to Thucydides, will lead to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, the subsequent civil wars and the rapid decline of the Athenian empire. The marine turning point of Athens is mainly due to a revolution in the mentality of the urban elites dedicated to trade and is the result of the diffusion and internalization of alphabetic writing which occurs precisely in the fifth century. The marine spatialization of Athenian politics, which has its origin in Themistocles and is consolidated with the long government of Pericles, is preceded by a spatialization of thought as an effect of writing. But, as clearly shown by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, this mental and spatial revolution does not take place completely and it is precisely in this continuous and unresolved conflict between orality and writing, between vocation to the sea and attachment to the land, that the main reasons for the final defeat of Athens lie.
Authors:Fabio Tarzia Abstract: The article investigates the origins of Christianity from a mediological point of view and in particular attempts to shed light on the following issues: the relationship between the theological and doctrinal foundations of the new religion and the media environments available in the first century; the communicative modalities of Jesus of Nazareth; the re-elaboration of the message of the Rabbi in the preaching of the disciples of the first and second generation; the re-mediation of the connection between oral and writing in the canonical Gospels.
Authors:Emiliano Laurenzi Abstract: The attempt of the article is to identify, in the period between the beginning of III cen. A.C. and the Year 1000, how Christianity detaches itself from the aniconic tradition of the Abrahamitic family, and develops its own peculiar relationship with the image and the gaze, that is the fruitt of synthesis between the late ancient philosophical and pictorial heritage, the Jewish matrix, and the encounter with the "barbarian" cultures. What role does the dogma of incarnation play in the elaboration of this new status of the image' What solutions are developped to make the image licit and to domesticate the gaze' The hypothesis of the article is that within Christianity, once the image is accepted, two different solutions are enucleated, wich will give rise to two forms of seriality. The key moment of this double split is the outcome of the two iconoclastic wars, similar to the last fierce Christological quarrel. A result that will generate precisely the two forms of seriality that the article tries to outline: the Byzantine/Orthodox and the Roman/Catholic.
Authors:Francesco Filotico, Francesco Somaini Abstract: The essay focuses on the possible communicative intentions of the lost Gothic History by the Roman Cassiodorus, a learned official of the Ostrogothic court of Theodoric and his successors. Proceeding on the basis of conjectures, supported, however, by several clues, the article suggests (in addition to a possible dating of the work to the years around 522-523) that the intentions of Cassiodorus were essentially three: making the history of the Goths compatible with Greek and Latin historiography; enhancing the lineage of Theodoric and his descendants with bold genealogical proposals; concealing the less glorious past of the history of the Gothic people. In the light of these arguments, the article also hypothesizes that Giordane's later Getica (History of the origins and deeds of the Goths), usually considered completely dependent on Cassiodorus, actually contained original parts not derived from the Gothic History of the learned Roman intellectual.
Authors:Donatella Capaldi Abstract: How to read a classic of literature such as the Decameron through a mediological approach' According to a first reflection on the general structure of the work, the author investigates the reasons making the text a decisive moment of rupture and innovation in the history of communication and culture. Main issues concern: Firstly, the medium's invention we are used to calling "literature", through the abandonment of the late medieval forms of written textuality. Significant changes in the medium's structure are related with the silent reading spread, and with the new social life complexity in cities. Secondly, the awareness of the reality-phenomenon ambiguity, and the consequent need to face it through a full sensorial experience: With Boccaccio emerged a revanche of the image, imagination, eros, in contrast with the pressure of the logical order of the normative and allegorical writing, and that opposition was regulated giving narrative expression to open conflicts. Thirdly, the introduction of a particular storytelling technology based on the ambiguity of discourse and situations, being interpreted on several levels. Finally, the spaces metaphorical values: Florence, the plague city, as an overturning for a new necessary beginning; and the garden in the "cornice", as a recognition of the subject sensitive nature in its relationship with the world.
Authors:Paolo Granata Abstract: Since late 15th century, Aldus Manutius plays an essential role in the development of print culture not only in the construction of the typographic consciousness of Modernity, but also in the implementation of a humanistic project that underlies communication history. For Aldus, the book becomes an interface of knowledge. If the invention of printing press had in fact initiated profound changes in the nature of the book, with Aldus, the medium, or rather the form of the printed text, becomes the message, the expression of a new way of looking at and perceiving the world, but also of constructing new worlds, new cognitive and sensory environments of human experience.
Authors:Giovanni Ragone Abstract: The genesis of the modern novel lasted for a long time: from stabilizing of the individuals' society and the Gutenberg Galaxy to the metropolis rise in the 19th century. This contribution aims to identify some paths of mediologic research, relating the aesthetic form's evolution of written fiction in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries with the cultural structures' incubation of the industrial world. Topics include: the succession of genres promoting the extension of cultural patterns through "serial machines"; the literary re-mediation of experience not based on the sense of sight; the growth of spectacular virtuality; the relationship between narration, forecasting, "uncanny", and fear. Finally, a first historical-geographical sketch is attempted by reconstructing an almost never completely described process.
Authors:William J. Buxton Abstract: In most discussions of Harold Innis' work on communications, his contributions have been treated as those of a general media theorist. His analyses of particular media are commonly viewed simply as instances of his broader account of how space- and time-binding media serve to bias societies and civilizations. This paper argues that Innis' generalizations about media derived, in fact, from his examination of how a particular cluster of media - namely, printing and publishing, with particular reference to newspapers - was linked to the onset of modernity. These concerns were evident in his magisterial unpublished manuscript, History of Communication. Drawing on its periodization and overarching themes, this paper examines Innis' account of the newspaper industry as it developed between the American Revolution and the mid-point of the twentieth century. The historical trajectory that Innis traces, it is argued, reveals the specific concerns about printing and modernity that underpinned his general reflections about time- and space-binding communications.
Authors:Eric McLuhan Abstract: In this paper the methodological implications arising from Marshall McLuhan's classic refrains - "I don't have A Theory of Communication" and "I don't use theories in my work" - are discussed. Absent a theory, the other way to work is by observation and investigative technique: first the evidence; then later, much later, the theory - if indeed one is necessary by then. Without a theory as a guide McLuhan was influenced by artists and poets in developing the analytical and conceptual tools he relied upon to examine media and communication. He referred to his procedure as starting with a problem and digging into the toolkit for something to open the matter up for elucidation. Chief among his tools of analysis was Practical Criticism, which he viewed as a kind of critic's Swiss- Army Knife that worked equally incisively across all of the arts and through all areas of culture, from high-brow to low. The argument that emerges from this analysis of McLuhan's investigative techniques is that many of the conundrums of modern media and culture are understood most effectively through research that transcends the constraints imposed by seeking to make the case for or against the truth of a particular theory. Begin with theory, you begin with the answer; begin with observation, you begin with questions.
Authors:Maria Giovanna Musso Abstract: Violence against women is one of the most persistent and widespread phenomena that human societies know and in many contexts its practice still proves difficult to eradicate. On the other hand, its perception and acceptance as normative are rapidly changing in every part of the globe, thanks to feminism, policies derived from studies of gendered violence, and global phenomena such as #Metoo. In this change, the medium of television has played and continues to play a fundamental role, both as a receiver and diffuser of the collective imaginary, and as a generator of its transformations. In this essay we ask about the specific logics that emerge from television narrative in relation to violence against women, especially around rape. Through a discussion of the different television formats and genres (fiction and non fiction, including broadcast, cable TV, streaming and video demand) we intend to examine the links beteween social change and television clichés in the representation of violence and rape, to see if and how these have changed over time. How does the culture of rape emerge and/or appear in various television genres and how is it changing in new streaming video content' What factors are most influencing the changes taking place in television representations of violence against women'
Authors:Francesco Pira Abstract: The pandemic has had a profound impact on individuals' lives. But there is a sector in society that appears to have most suffered the consequences of the rules imposed to contain the spread of the virus, it is the generation of pre-adolescents and adolescents. They have been forced to physical isolation, e-learnig, without any possibility of aggregation and community life. Young people who live through the web a dimension of exasperated vetrinization of their lives centered on the concept of a performative self to obtain the approval of their audience. They adopt real self-representation strategies that include the use of false profiles and seem to suggest a path of adaptation to the disinformative and manipulatory context in which we are increasingly immersed. Starting from these elements, the article intends to explore, with the support of data collected in recent surveys, what impact the phenomena underway may have on the dynamics that contribute to the formation of social capital. In fact, there is a key component of the very definition of social capital which is highly fragile. I refer to the role of trust as investigated by Giddens, Beck, Fukyama and Luhman who attribute it as a key element for the development and survival of society. Where we are witnessing the proliferation of entropy dynamics of the experience of the social world deriving precisely from the growing flows of disinformation.
Authors:Ilenia Colonna Abstract: In March 2017, in Salento, the No Tap Movement was born: a protest movement that takes position against the construction of the Tap pipeline. The movement has involved the local population, has discussed with national and international institutional actors and has placed the protection of the environment and the action in defending the right of citizens at the center of its claim. The account of the experience by some activists has highlighted the important role that personal relationships and digital media have played in the history of the Movement. Through the stories of the insiders, this paper intends to achieve three objectives: outline a self-portrait of the No tap Movement that allows us to understand how these people perceive the Movement; bring out the dynamics of collaboration, communication and participation that have characterized the No Tap Movement; define the role that social relations and digital media have played in the organization, communication and action of the Movement.
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