Research Activities – Communication Sciences Faculty – Research Strands

Scientific – Disciplinary Sector M-FIL/05 PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY OF LANGUAGES

Prof. David Gargani – Researcher

Prof. David Gargani’s research activity takes place in the fields of semeiotics and philosophy of language. Within these fields, his studies mainly deals with semantics and in particular with the relationships existing among language, thought and direct experience and with the semiotic analysis of ideologies. The two main research areas nowadays are the ontogenesis of meaning (in the framework of the relationships between language and thought) and the semeiotic analysis of ideologies and in particular the study of the “Cinegiornali” Luce and Incom as means for manufacturing consent.

The study of verbal meaning (Ontogenesis of meaning) is one of the key issues of the diverse disciplines thinking about language and human knowledge. In the last three decades the debate has been characterized by a confrontation between two families of theories: those mainly linked to the linguistic shift that were prevailing from the beginning of the XX Century up to the Mid-Seventies and those more linked to the cognitive shift prevailing the following period. The former approach, linked, from one side, to linguistics and structural semeiotics, considers that languages and other sign’s systems play a significant role in structuring typically human thought; the latter one, linked to the development of the cognitive sciences, sustains the primacy of natural cognition (innate or experience-based) and cultural semeiotic systems can then stem only from this basis.

The ontogenesis of meaning appears as a privileged ground for tackling these questions. The main objectives of the research works developed within this strand was that of finding a synthesis between the two families of theories, in particular between experiential and embodied cognitive semantics (Lakoff, Johnson, Fauconnier, Turner, Borghi, Gallese, Rizzolatti) and the theories inspired to arbitrariness of language (Saussure, Wittgenstein, Vygotskij, De Mauro, Prieto, Veggetti). This work came to a first important systematic structuring with the volume La nascita del significato, published by Guerra in 2004. In this work and in group of articles arriving to 2012 the perspective (sustained by cognitive semantics) develops and according to it human semiosis and with it the learning of historical-natural languages is based on pre-linguistic cognition, and in particular on the creation of experiential concepts based on perception and action and on the ability to form implicit meta-representations. The development of language and of semiosis typically transform this pre-linguistic knowledge restructuring it in a network of relations among signs. The semeiotization of thought makes this knowledge a possible object of analysis making possible explicit meta-representations and getting aware about concepts.

The general assumption of the research work conducted on the Semeiotic Analysis of Ideologies is that there are different visions of the concept of ideology that can be referred to two main views: a neutral one that considers ideology as a set of beliefs and values affirmed by a more or less extensive social group; another depreciative one that considers ideology as a closed system that eliminates part of the possible values and beliefs. Given that, with De Mauro, Eco as well as with the developments into a dynamic and multiform way of the concept of culture and cultural identity (Sen, Amselle) we can think that the global semantic system is an open and contradictory system including even opposite beliefs and values, ideology and ideological messages cancel all the uneasy components of this last one. These general assumptions are applied to the study of Luce and Incom movie news reports as means for consent manufacturing. This part of the research required an empirical study of the Luce and Incom movie news reports as well as of the relative historical and political context and was based on a cooperation with Antonella Pagliarulo, an historian and expert in audiovisuals and political propaganda. So far this work was focused mainly on Luce movie news reports. The first outcome of this work consists in set of contributions to conferences and seminars and in article (Gargani, Pagliarulo, 2011). In addition, some final dissertation were assigned and discussed.
In 2014 Prof. David Gargani earned a national scientific qualification as associate professor for the scientific – disciplinary sector M-FIL/05.

S.S.D. L-ART/06 CINEMA, PHOTOGRAPHI AND TELEVISION

Prof. Salvatore Salviano Miceli – Researcher

Prof. Miceli’s main activities are: study and analysis of the new technologies related to cinema and television; study, analysis and comparison of the changed impact of digital devices on the movies; critical analysis of the poetics and cinema of contemporary directors; analysis of the aims of contemporary audiovisual language from a production and consumption perspective; the Web and the new languages: how criticism and the cinema publishing worlds change. Research work is mainly aimed at the study of the changes that took place in the poetics and language of some of the more representative authors of contemporary cinema. Through a more in-depth and interdisciplinary study the fascinating, but complex links governing the forms of hybridization among different media and even among different genres based on the same narrative language are discovered.
The studies on interactions between cinema and comics – a by now vital marriage for the cinema industry – and on the progressive affirmation of what can be defined as total art work are the subject of the latest scientific activity.

Scientific – Disciplinary Sector L-FIL-LETT/11 CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN LITERATURE

Prof. Nora Moll – Researcher

Migration and literature in Europe in the second half of the XX Century
Prof. Moll’s research activity is set in the framework of the theoretical-methodological studies related to literary imagology. These research works are structured on two main lines:

Migration and literature in Europe in the second half o the XX Century:
The activities referring to this research lines are, specifically: selection and analysis of literary production in Italian of authors of non-Italian origin; comparison among different European models of "migrant literature"; comparative analysis between poetic and narrative production of two “migrant” female authors.

Italian literature and transculturality: the XX Century

The activities referring to this research line are, specifically: selection and analysis of the literary production in Italian of authors of non-Italian origin; comparison among different European models of "migrant literature"; comparative analysis between poetic and narrative production of two “migrant” female authors. Both research lines converge into a survey on the trans-cultural aspects characterizing a body of quite a wide range of literary texts and chronologically set in the period comprised between the beginning of the last Century to the present days. It is a methodological perspective starting from a selection of the national and international theoretical and literary production related to the so-called migration literature to enlarge critical analysis to Italian contemporary authors (“migrant” and not “migrant”) involved in events such as exile, “expatriation”, migration, trans- and pluri-lingualism. The culmination of studies and essays of the last five years is to be retraced to the recently completed monograph to be published shortly (see infra).

Scientific – Disciplinary Sector SPS/08 SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURAL AND COMMUNICATION PROCESSES

Prof. Gianpiero Gamaleri – Associate Professor

1) Analysis of the evolution of the communication strategies of internationally renowned personalities ()
Starting from the distinction between hard news and news analysis, the activities referring to this research strand are aimed the analysis of the communication strategies of some personalities dominating the cultural and political arena: from the historical waiving of Pope Benedict to the first speech of Pope Francis from Loggia of Saint Peter, from Berlusconi’s television to Obama’s e-mails, from Grillo’s blogs to Renzi’s tweets across new communication tools this personalities appear revisited in their own humanity and not only in their looks. The idea that these personalities are the mirror of the deep injuries hurting our society and of the weak hopes nourishing our future is deepened.

Scientific – Disciplinary Sector ICAR/13 INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Prof. Antonio Romano – Associate Professor

The research activity of Prof. Antonio Romano is mainly aimed at the question of the evolution of brand. This research strand analyses the changing approaches through which brand rules having evolving. From the origins in which there was only writing, “decorated” by the manufacturer’s name, up to the “confirmation” of the Fifties in which the brand is a guarantee for the product and for the consumer. It is an analysis of nowadays communication that overcomes the idea of consumption and, moreover, that of sale since it has to capture the true sense of dialogue meant as a lever to build knowledge, reliability, trust and reputation.
Everything is focused on brand content, the set of contents in which all possible expressions merge: from advertising to entertainment, from architecture to the (traditional and online) publishing industry up to social networks or human resources’ behaviors. Against this background, the rules of traditional brand identity are limited to a surely important, but more and more technical area. Actually, it is the historical role of brand that is worn out since the XXI Century’s brand is so when it gets into an opinion leading factor, capable of making people speak about it without necessarily appearing through its own logo recovering its older meaning: word, language, discourse. Therefore, it has not been consumed yet.

Scientific – Disciplinary Sector IUS/09 ISTITUTIONS OF PUBLIC LAW

Prof. Rodolfo De Laurentiis – Associate Professor

The research activities of Prof. De Laurentiis are aimed at exploring the evolving trends of the relationship between the regulatory system and the media structure characterizing the Italian as well as foreign regulatory systems, regardless the of fact that they belong or not to the EU, by adopting a comparativist and transnational approach. One of main strands is represented by a special focus on modes of protection of the main rights of the new technological platforms and to the delicate balancing acts of which national and European judges are responsible.

Scientific – Disciplinary Sector M-FIL/04 AESTHETICS

Prof. Hansmichael Hohenegger – Associate Professor

The research activity of Prof. Hohenegger is conducted at the ILIESI, Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale e Storia delle Idee. His research works deal with the history of modern philosophy and, more specifically, with Kant’s work by paying attention on the texts, history of cultural terminology and the philosophical lexicon of the XVII and XVIII Centuries. His collaboration with UNINETTUNO is carried on in the framework of a research whose title is: Lo studio della terminologia della filosofia e nuovi modelli di didattica (The study of philosophy terminology and new teaching models). An essential component of the learning of philosophic thought consists in a personal construction of a vocabulary. The project is aimed at making available to students old and new tools to accomplish this task in self-conscious, personal and well-structured way. The actual object of this research is Kant’s terminology in Die Kritik der Urteilskraft.