Media studies are a pivotal way of understanding society.
Media became pervasive in our individual and collective everyday life, and they are able to create collective representations and memory on a global level: all the information we have about society and the world come from the media.
Their pervasiveness makes them, and us, ubiquitous: through our smartphones we can live in several worlds at the same time. Media, and especially the new digital media, deeply modified our way of experiencing the space.
Often media and space are understood as dichotomous concepts, as if “real reality” and “virtual reality” could exist separately. Such an interpretation can acquire a shade of nostalgia if relations established in the “real” world are considered “pure”, “im-mediate” in the meaning of “not-mediated”, and possibly threatened by the diffusions of the new media and of more mediated relations.
Nevertheless, a deeper analysis reveals that urban space and new media are strongly linked and that their relation is not based on a simple contraposition. New media do not simply dematerialise social relations: they make the territory more complex and stratified. They do not replace the physical space: they re-mediate the borders and re-define traditional distinctions, such as public-private, external-internal.
The aim of the Summer school is to investigate the complex relations between space, city and media. Major attention will be given to the methodological questions that threaten the scholars in Human Sciences.
The courses will be held in English by renowned scholars from Europe and North America, experts from different disciplines, who will illustrate the complexity and potentialities of these perspectives.
Application deadline: April 15, 2017
Application fee: 350€, it includes course materials, coffee breaks and lunch meals.
Discover more on our website: www.media-sociology.com <http://www.media-sociology.com>
For any information do not hesitate to contact the coordinator
(Anita Paolicchi: mediasociology.pisa@gmail.com <mailto:mediasociology.pisa@gmail.com>)