Renee Hobbs, Professor, Founder and Director of the
Media Education Lab, Harrington School of Communication and Media,
University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island, USA
Presentation title: Mind Over Media: Teaching and Learning about Contemporary Propaganda
Renee Hobbs is a professor at the University of Rhode Island's
Harrington School of Communication and Media, where she directs the
Media Education Lab. As a researcher, teacher, media creator and
activist, she has helped to advance the quality of media literacy
education in the United States and around the world. Her most recent
books including Create to Learn: Introduction to Digital Literacy (2017)
and The Routledge Companion on Media Education, Copyright and Fair Use
(2018). Author of eight books and more than 150 scholarly and
professional articles, she is the founding co-editor of the Journal of
Media Literacy Education and helped to found the national U.S.
membership organization for media literacy, the National Association for
Media Literacy Education (NAMLE). With colleagues, she developed Mind
Over Media (www.mindovermedia.eu) a crowdsourced digital platform for
analyzing contemporary propaganda, which is now being used in six
countries in Europe as part of media literacy education.
Fausto Colombo, Head of the Department of Communication and Performing Arts, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
Presentation title: Something old in the new. Something new in the old. Elderly learning in the digital mediascape
Fausto Colombo is head of the Department of Communication and Performing
Arts at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy.
He’s full professor of Media communication theory and Politics and
Media, coordinator of the bachelor degree’s course in Communication and
society and director of the Master in Communication, Digital Marketing
and Interactive Advertising. He was representative professor at Italian
Switzerland University (Lugano) from 2013 to 2016, and visiting
professor at Celsa, Université Sorbonne (Paris) in 2014 and Université
Lumière in Lyon in 2018. He was also holder of the Unesco Chair in
International Communication at Université Stendhal in Grenoble in 2015.
In 1994 he created OssCom – Media and Communication research centre of
the Università Cattolica in Milan, which he directed for 18 years, from
1994 to 2012.
He was member of ECREA (European Communication Research and Education
Association) Executive Board from 2012 to 2016, and he’s actually member
of the directive committee of Film, Media and Visual studies section of
the European Academy.
He’s being studying the bounds between digitalisation phenomena and
generation or age group belonging, also thanks to the increasing
collaboration with a net of colleagues in Italy and Europe.
A long series of national and international researches allowed him to
practice several empirical studies, using both surveys and qualitative
methods (in particular focus groups, in depth interviews, ethnography in
presence and through online techniques).
In 2013 he coordinated am articulated research project named “I don’t
want to be retired”: life lengthening, generational challenges and an
opportunity for society (2013-2016)”, financed by Università Cattolica
through a competitive internal announcement.
He’s actually Italian coordinator of the Harvest project (“eHealth
and Ageing in Rural Areas: transforming Everyday Life, Digital
Competences, and Technology”), together with Finnish and Swedish
researchers, financed through a call of the European plan “Ageing and
Place in a Digitising World - 2017”.