Programme

History of the digital revolution:

Contents: 1. Introduction to the digital age; 2. The origins of the Internet; 3. An idea born “in the shadow of nuclear weapons”; 4. From radars to the WWW; 5. The computer; 6. “Computers become cheap, fast and widespread”; 7. Electronic mail; 8. Expansion; 9. From military networks to the global Internet; 10. The Web; 11. A platform for commerce and the rise of the dot.com; bubble 12. The Web 2.0; 13. The mobile phone and the digitization of analog media; 14. Politics in the digital age; 15. An information society?; 16. Social and cultural transformations in the digital age; 17. Artificial intelligence.

Extra topics: 1. Digital age and globalization; 2. Past futures: cybernetics and economic planning; 3. Digital revolution and international competition: European cooperation and the governance of globalization; 4. High technology and the U.S.-China competition

The first part of the course will be conducted through lectures, also with the help of photographs and films.
The second part of the course will take the form of a specialized seminar. After an initial round of lectures in which the lecturer will outline the main topics that will be addressed, the attending students will be required to give an oral presentation on a monograph chosen from within a list that will be presented by the lecturer at the beginning of the course. Each presentation will then be followed by a collective discussion by the class. At the end of the course, attending students will also be required to submit a written paper of approximately 5,000 words in which they will analyze the book studied in light of the interpretations and analyses discussed during the seminar.

Core Documentation

ATTENDING STUDENTS:

1) Gabriele Balbi, Paolo Magaudda, Media digitali. La storia, i contesti sociali, le narrazioni, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2021;
2) Tommaso Detti, Giuseppe Lauricella, Le origini di Internet, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2013;
3) Readings assigned by the instructors.


NON ATTENDING STUDENTS:

1) Gabriele Balbi, Paolo Magaudda, Media digitali. La storia, i contesti sociali, le narrazioni, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2021;
2) Tommaso Detti, Giuseppe Lauricella, Le origini di Internet, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2013;
3) Adam Arvidsson, Alessandro Delfanti, Introduzione ai media digitali, SECONDA EDIZIONE, Bologna, il Mulino, 2016 (seconda edizione);
4) Sara Bentivegna, Giovanni Boccia Artieri, Voci della democrazia. Il futuro del dibattito pubblico, Bologna, il Mulino, 2021.

Reference Bibliography

Extra readings may be made available by the instructor

Attendance

Attending students can only miss up to four classes

Type of evaluation

For attending students only, the assessment related to the first part of the course may take the form of a mid-term exam, with questions aimed at verifying the level of skills the student has acquired. The mid-term will determine 50% of the final grade. The remaining 50% of the final grade will depend on the seminar part of the class. In the seminar phase, students will be required to present an oral presentation and a paper of approximately 5,000 words on a monograph chosen from within a list that will be presented by the lecturer at the beginning of the course. The grade on this part (which will be averaged with the grade on the first part) will be assigned based on the student's performance in the following activities: ORAL PRESENTATION: 30 percent; FINAL ESSAY: 70 percent. For non-attending students, the evaluation is done only through an oral exam. The criteria adopted for evaluation are as follows: knowledge of the program content; clarity of exposition and use of appropriate language; ability to make critical judgment.