Unit Sociology of Web and Security
- Course
- Socioanthropological studies for integration and social security
- Study-unit Code
- A002561
- Curriculum
- In all curricula
- Teacher
- Piero Dominici
- Teachers
-
- Piero Dominici
- Raffaele Federici (Codocenza)
- Hours
- 24 ore - Piero Dominici
- 30 ore (Codocenza) - Raffaele Federici
- CFU
- 9
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2021
- Offered
- 2021/22
- Learning activities
- Caratterizzante
- Area
- Discipline sociologiche
- Academic discipline
- SPS/08
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- Italian
- Contents
- In the age of globalization and of complex connectivity, deeply impacted – as a world-system – by the crisis of the traditional Nation-States and by the absence of international organs and institutions actually capable of influencing the global processes and of defining the strategic guidelines for a genuine “global domestic politics”, the activities of intelligence have taken an unprecedented strategic relevance in the governance of hypercomplexity and of a “new hypercomplexity”, which in order to be fully understood and managed, calls for a scientific method and approach to complexity along with a systemic perspective.
- Reference texts
- Recommended reading
1. M.Ferraris, Documanità. Filosofia del mondo nuovo, Laterza, BAri-Roma 2021.
2. P.Dominici (2014), Dentro la Società interconnessa. La cultura della complessità per abitare i confini e le tensioni della civiltà ipertecnologica, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2019
See also:
For an inclusive innovation. Healing the fracture between the human and the technological in the hypercomplex society, in European Journal of Futures Research, 6, 3 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40309-017-0126-4
download: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40309-017-0126-4#article-info Peer Reviewed
Communication and Social Production of Knowledge. A new contract for the Society of Individuals, in «Comunicazioni Sociali», n°1/2015, Vita & Pensiero, Milano 2015. ISSN: 03928667 - PEER REVIEW - Educational objectives
- Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students will have acquired:
1) the knowledge of the most topical issues covered in the lessons
2) the ability to formulate – logical and coherent - arguments on the topics and to identify the connections between the levels of analysis involved
3) the ability to interpret data and recognize the methodological implications
4) the ability to formulate assessments in a fully autonomous manner
5) communicative skills for developing arguments in support of their ideas 6) the ability, through reasoning and insight, to define possible solutions and to anticipate new problems. - Prerequisites
- Considered the issues and topics that will be covered in the lessons, it is strongly recommended to the students (attending and not) to have acquired knowledge (at least, the fundamental ones) concerning the following subjects:1) knowledge of legal framework, with particular reference to the rights of freedom and the rights of citizenship; it would be quite useful the knowledge of the main regulations regarding public communication about simplification, transparency and access; these issues will be developed and extended in the lessons; 2) knowledge of the communication field: with special reference to theories, studies and sociological research and, specifically, the Communication Research; it is strongly recommended, for this purpose, the knowledge of paradigms and models of Communication Sciences
- Teaching methods
- Classroom lectures, debate, (face-to-face), seminars and practical training, but also Laboratory activities aimed, with particular attention, to the planning and implementation of a Communication Plan (complex and indispensable tool for the Public Administrations)
Should the health emergency persist, the lessons will be held in blended mode - Other information
- It is recommended that you always contact before the professor to define the appointment (email, skype, cell phone) e-mail:
piero.dominici@unipg.it
www.worldacademy.org
skype: pierodominici
mob: +39 -392 /1879214
Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science
Blog Il Sole 24 Ore: http://pierodominici.nova100.ilsole24ore.com/ - Learning verification modality
- Assessment methods The exam is always oral (oral exam) and it has a duration of at least 25 minutes. The objectives of the exam are many:
1) to verify the knowledge of the topics covered during the course;
2) to evaluate the ability to analyze and make connections between the issues;
3) to evaluate the communication skills gained. It's also planned a presentation by the students of individual papers about topics covered in the course. Students may also choose to discuss the projects they developed, always concerning topics analyzed in the lessons - Extended program
- The Interconnected/Hyperconnected Society – a global ecosystem of limited rationality founded on the interdependence of systems and on the processing of information and knowledge (a new paradigm) (Dominici, 2014) – reveals itself, in fact, not only as the underlying structure of digital capitalism and of the sharing economy (Dominici, 1998), but above all, in relation to the issues considered in this essay, as the ideal communicative habitat for criminal and terrorist organizations. Here they can both plan and carry out propagandistic initiatives capable of deeply conditioning individual and collective perception, fears, uncertainty, risk awareness and the social acceptance of risk, and in general, public opinion and the collective imagination, exposed, as never before, to the emotional flare-ups of the global media system. Public opinion(s), which are more and more easily conditioned, are in turn capable of putting pressure on politics, which is expected, despite having itself become weaker and weaker with respect to financial and economic powers, to provide solutions and to make choices of transnational relevance. The network and the ecosystems of complex connectivity have been acting for some time as the main lever for bringing this conflict, which displays facets today which are completely different from those in the past, towards a strategic, not to say crucial praxis, both on a micro and a macro plane: a communication plan scattering in all directions, going viral in real time. Meanwhile, the categories which I can, for simplicity’s sake, term “western democratic regimes”, find themselves totally incapable of fending off the kind of media propaganda and psychological warfare that is also being carried out on a cultural basis. It is precisely in this manner that the error being made is to interpret such complex, ambivalent and ambiguous situations considering the role of the European Union and the so-called “international community” – whose presence is increasingly imperceptible – through the reductionist lens of a “clash of civilizations.”
And that is exactly what terrorists and extremists have set as their main objective, apart from undermining trust in social relations and in systems experts, and from casting radical doubts on the concepts of liberty and privacy – which are already being violated online, it goes without saying, by multinational companies - and on the principles and the lifestyles that characterize the nation states who are attempting to resist this assault. In other words, global terrorism, aside from its main aim – obviously – to terrorize and to generate fear, has only to sit back and await the forthcoming “Us against Them” reaction. Under these circumstances, the first and foremost action to be taken urgently is a serious social and cultural analysis of these phenomena and of the contexts in which they thrive. Yet the impression is that, at this point in the strategic process, we are simply playing things by ear. In particular, the total lack of any kind of communication strategy, either on a local or on a global level, is painfully clear. A strategy, that is, capable of weaving a counter-narrative to legitimize the political and diplomatic actions that must be carried out. Basing our first steps on an analysis of the theoretical framework of reference in studies on globalization and the Interconnected Society, the course will offer an angle analytical reflection on the topics of intelligence and security, beginning, as said above, with a critical systemic approach to complexity, capable of underlining the importance of the “scientific method” in intelligence activities and, at the same time, to supply a key to interpreting the trajectories and discontinuities that characterize the new global ecosystem (1996) of information and communication. ***
During the lessons, there will be particular attention to the issues regarding the method and the approach: complexity, systems theory and thinking.