Communication, technologies and digital culture

General objectives. The first general objective of the course is to introduce students to the main themes of study of social psychology, highlighting the empirical nature of the discipline. To achieve this goal, in addition to the lectures some exercises will be carried out based on the critical analysis of a few relevant researches, discussing their methodological choices and applicative consequences in various contexts.The second general objective is to propose a specific study on the contribution given by the social psychology to communication studies. Here again methodological problems linked to construction of research and to results' interpretation will be considered in depth. The third general objective is to discuss how the study of communication, based on the contributions of social psychology on these issues, may be modified in the current context of everyday life, increasingly characterized in an intercultural sense. Upon completion of the course students are expected to understand the originality of the psychological discipline, which deals with the same self-reflective questions that are part of everyday thinking, but using the tools and methodologies of an empirical science. Even with the deepening of some fundamental researches that shaped the core of the discipline, students are expected to differentiate between the formulation of a research question, that is circumscribed and verifiable, and psychological commonsense representations of processes explaining how one's own mind and the mind of others work. Students are also expected to master a description of the main areas of study of the discipline, paying a particular attention to research focused on the theme of human communication, both face to face and mediated. Specific objectives. 1. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding. At the end of the course students are expected to have adequate skills to understand the complexity of psychological research, especially for researches carried out in the field of social psychology and communication psychology. Students are also expected to use these skills to analyse those situations when distorted psycho-social and communication processes (such as lack of care and social isolation, structural, symbolic, cultural, or direct violence, manipulative or false communications) threaten trust and hope in oneself and in one's own social relationships, which psychology considers as the indispensable bases for the safeguarding of mental wellbeing and of constructive social relationships. 2. Autonomy of judgment. Students will have the opportunity to discuss with each other and with the teacher about some researches that proved to be fundamental for the development of the discipline, by critically examining their methodology, the interpretation of their results and their applicative consequences. In particular, students will be encouraged to develop their own capacity for an independent judgment facing the ethical aspects of psychological researches, and the subsequent vision of man and society that these researches imply. 3. Communication skills. During the entire teaching period, students will be involved in organizing and conducting debates on topics that they have chosen within the training offer. Furthermore, after having studied in depth some topics related to specific research domains, experts of these areas of research will be invited in the classroom, to answer the students' questions. 4. Learning skills. A first phase of the course will be based mainly on traditional lessons, and will be followed by a mid-term evaluation test to make clear the acquisition of a set of basic concepts. Starting from these acquisitions, students will be encouraged to carry out autonomous study activities, within a set of suggestions prepared by the teacher. These activities will be carried out by small working groups that will then report the conclusions of their study to the discussion of the whole class, using communication methods chosen by the students themselves (power point presentations, commentary on short films, analysis of selected researches, etc.).