People

Italy

Giovanna Mascheroni // Italy

Giovanna Mascheroni

Coordinator
PhD, is a Lecturer in Sociology of Communication and Culture in the Department of Sociology, Università Cattolica, Milano, where she is a Senior Researcher at OssCom. She  has been the national contact of EU Kids Online project since 2007, and has been working as an expert for the two independent assessments of the implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles for the EC. She is member of the Advisory Board of the Online Youth Centre run by the Italian Insafe node. Her work focuses on the social shaping of the internet and mobile media, online risks and opportunities for children, online participation and digital citizenship.

Her latest publications in English include:
(2009)
with Ponte, C. and Bawens, J., “Children and the internet in the news: agency, voices and agenda ”, in Livingstone, S., Haddon, L. (Eds.) Kids Online. Opportunities and Risks for Children; (2011) with S. Livingstone and M.F. Murru   Utilisation des réseaux socionumériques par les jeunes européens,  «Hermès» 59; (2012) “Online Participation: New Forms of Civic and Political Engagement or Just New Opportunities for Networked Individualism”, in Loader, B., Mercea, D. (Eds) Social Media and Democracy: Innovations in Participatory Politics, Routledge; (2012) with Murru, M. F.  and Görzig, A. “Varieties of access and use”, in Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., & Görzig, A. (eds) Children, risk and safety on the internet: Kids online in comparative perspective. Bristol: The Policy Press.

 

Kjartan Olaffson

Kjartan Ólafsson

Statistical analyst
Is a lecturer at the University of Akureyri in Iceland where he teaches research methods and quantitative data analysis. He is a work package leader in the EU Kids Online III project and was active in designing the methodologies used in EU Kids Online II.  He has also been involved in other cross- national comparative projects on children (ESPAD – European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs; HBSC – Health Behaviour in School-aged Children). He has a long experience in project management and statistical analysis.

 

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Andrea Cuman

Research assistant
PhD in Communication Cultures at Università Cattolica di Milano with a thesis titled ‘Mediaspaces, urban events and mobile experience: an ethnographic enquiry into the social production of the city of design’. He is interested in the digitisation processes of media and cultural products, with particular attention to social and locative media, and he is also Junior Researcher at OssCom where he conducts research on cross-platform media consumption, internet and mobile use by children and youth, and the creative industries in Italy.

Amongst his publications, is a book chapter (co-authored with F. Colombo) titled “The (old) new value of digital TV as a cultural product” (2012, Peter Lang, Berlin).

 


Barbara Scifo

Barbara Scifo

Team Member
PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Culture and Communication at Università Cattolica of Milan, where she teaches Languages and Instruments of Communication. She is a Senior Researcher at OssCom. Her main research interest is the social shaping of ICTs, especially the mobile telephony and the internet. She has recently paid special attention to young people’s crossmedia pratices and the audience research in the social media era. She is currently engaged the a study of the “domestication” of the mobile internet by children and young people and of the socio-cultural consequences of the diffusion of locative media in everyday life. Since 2001 she has been involved in many national and international research networks on ICTs. She is part of the Italian team of EU Kids Online.

Among her international publications are: 
(2009)
 “The Socio-cultural Forms of Mobile Personal Photographs in a Cross-Media Ecology: Reflections Starting from the Young Italian Experience, in Knowledge, Technology & Policy”, 22 (3) ; (2008) “Prácticas y rituales de consumo de la telefonía móvil multimedia entre jóvenes italianos” in J. M. Aguado y I.J. Martinez (eds.) Sociedad móvil. Tecnología identidad y cultura, Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid ; (2008) (with G. Mascheroni, F. Pasquali, A. Sfardini, M. Stefanelli, N. Vittadini) “Young Italians’ Crossmedia Cultures”, Observatorio (OBS*)  2(1); (2005) “The Domestication of Camera-Phone and MMS Communication”, in K. Nyìri (ed.), A Sense of Place (Vienna: Passagen Verlag).

 

Piermarco Aroldi

Piermarco Aroldi

Team member
PhD, is Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Università Cattolica of Milan and Piacenza. He is Director of OssCom, an academic research centre for media and communication based at the same university . His scientific interest is in media consumption in everyday life, especially from a generational perspective, looking at the family and children.

Recent publications include:
(2011), “Generational belonging between media audiences and ICT users”, in Colombo F. and  Fortunati L. (eds.), Broadband society and generational changes, p. 51-68, Frankfurt am Mein, Peter Lang GMBH; (2010), “(New) challenges for a (new) media education”, in Blanco I., Romer M., Los niños frente las pantallas. p. 19-30, Madrid, Editorial Universitas; (2007), “Comportamiento infantil. Consumo mediático y cultura del consumo”, Telos, vol. 73, p. 85-92; with F. Colombo (2007),”Generational belonging and mediascape in Europe”, Journal of Social Science Education, vol. 6, p. 34-44; (2003), “Television and Protection of Minors in Some European Countries. A comparative Study”, in Von Feilitzen C., Carlsson U. (Eds.), Promote or Protect. Perspectives on Media Literacy and Media Regulations, p. 179-195, Goteborg: The International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media.

 

MariaFrancescaMurru

Maria Francesca Murru

Team member
PhD, is a Post-Doctoral researcher at Catholic University of Milan, Political Science Faculty. She is currently working as a researcher at OssCom, an academic research centre for media and communication based at the same university. She has been involved in qualitative research examining the social shaping of ICTs among children and teenagers and she is a member of the Italian team of EU Kids Online II. Her research fields include media and children, civic participation in online public spheres.

Recent publications include:
with Mascheroni G., Aristodemou E. Laouris, Y., “Parents”, in O’Neill B., Staksrud, E., McLaughlin, S., Promoting a Safer Internet for Children: European Policy Debates and Challenges, Nordicom, Goteborg; (2011) with Livingstone, S. and Mascheroni, G., Utilisation des réseaux socionumériques par les jeunes européens,  «Hermès – Ces réseaux numériques dits sociaux», N. 59; (2009), “New media – new public spheres? An analysis of online shared spaces becoming public agoras”, in Carpentier, N. et al., Communicative approaches to politics and ethics in Europe, Tartu University Press, Tartu.

 

foto

Marina Micheli

Team member
Recently gained a PhD in Information Society at the Department of Sociology and Social Research, University Milano-Bicocca. Her thesis explores how teenagers from different social classes use the internet in their everyday life and the role of parental socialization in engendering digital inequalities. She is interested in the way digital media appropriation by youth might challenge or confirm social and cultural reproduction. She has been involved in both qualitative and quantitative research concerning students use of ICT, media consumption and digital skills. Her research areas include youth and digital media, online opportunities, digital inequalities, parental mediation, ICT use for school and media literacy.

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Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) with its five campuses, it is the only university in Italy operating on a national scale.
Since its foundation in 1921, thousands of students have graduated from the university, many of whom having reached notable levels of achievement in diverse professional spheres. UCSC operates in both humanities and sciences with 38 bachelor degree programmes, 1 four-years degree programme, 4 intensive-study degree programmes, 53 specialist schools, and almost 100 master degree programmes.
Research activity takes place within 54 institutes, 22 Departments and 70 research centres, and is aimed at understanding issues crucial to life and society: new frontiers in economics and bioethics, changes in the field of law, family and cultural trends, mass media, changes in political systems, aims and goals of medicine, technological applications of mathematics and physics, and the most recent discoveries in environmental research. Within UCSC, the project will be carried out by OssCom.

OssCom, Centre for media and communication research, was founded in 1994 in order to conduct theoretical and applied research in the field of media and cultural industries in the Italian context.
OssCom’s approach is characterised by certain distinctive features including: a holistic perspective to cultural industries and a tradition of studing the dynamics of technological innovation, digital media and the internet. Taking advantage of a hybrid identity between universities and the business world, OssCom promotes the constant dialogue between theoretical and applied research in multiple disciplines (media studies, sociology, semiotics, anthropology).
OssCom applies established and innovative qualitative research methods, using desk analysis (content, discourse and online conversation analysis) and field analysis (qualitative interviews, focus groups, action research, ethnography, virtual ethnography etc.). In recent years research has focused mainly on media consumption in everyday life, looking at the family and children.

 

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