PhD Program in Politics and Communication—POLICOM XXXIX cycle

Coordinator Professor Filippo FIMIANI

Contacts:

Council members

direzione.dottorato.POLICOM@unisa.it

Doctoral students

segreteria.dottorato.POLICOM@unisa.it

The PhD Programme in Politics and Communication—POLICOM provides high-level training for research and professional figures whose profiles are deserving of the opportunities provided by Horizon Europe 2021-2027, of the national and international policies driven by the post-COVID-19 NextGenerationEU and of the EU 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The POLICOM PhD Programme earnestly promotes the interdisciplinary, intersectoral and internationalist aims of the PNRR. To this end, the POLICOM PhD Programme reaps the benefits of long-established relationships between the Department of Political and Communication Sciences—DiSPC-POLICOM and several universities in Colombia, such as the Universidad Católica de Pereira. The PhD Programme is focused on the processes and objectives of digitization and innovation, social inclusion, ecological transition, sustainability and regeneration, cultural and creative industry and entrepreneurship and tourism, which are particularly pressing in the Southern Regions. It is in fact in these territories, and in their both public and private Institutions, organizations, companies and businesses, that the primary incoming, ongoing and outgoing Stakeholders are identified and selected. These stakeholders function as decisive partners in providing doctoral students with training in research and professional specializations and in granting them access to employment.

The PhD Programme in Politics and Communication—POLICOM is an expression of the consolidated tradition of studies and research of the Department of Political and Communication Sciences— DISPC-POLICOM of the University of Salerno, former home of the PhD in Sciences of Language, Politics, Society and Education—SLIPSE and of the Doctoral School in Sciences and Cultures of the Human—SCU. The POLICOM PhD Programme is informed by the richness and plurality of the humanistic and methodological knowledge of the scientific areas that constitute the DISPC- POLICOM and that underpin the Department’s Master’s Degree courses (the Interclass Master's Degree in Corporate Communication and Media, and the Master's Degrees in Management of Tourism Systems for Sustainable Development, and in Territorial Policies and International Cooperation), of which the Programme serves as the logical and natural next step and to which it refers for primary incoming Stakeholders. It is thus divided into three Curricula:

1. A) Communication, Media, Languages and Society. Cultures and Sciences;
2. B) Politics, Law and Institutions. Theory and History;
3. C) Territory, Businesses and Sustainability. Global strategies and dynamics.

These Curricula constitute an integrated and dynamic ecosystem of good frontal teaching practices and of methodologies and technologies of research training and instruction, of know-how and targeted soft skills, also thanks to curricular and extra-curricular, inter-doctoral and inter-university, national and international seminars, workshops, laboratories, internships and shared supplementary activities. All training and research activities of the PhD Programme are subject to constant and scheduled quality controls with verifications, questionnaires, monitoring and peer- reviews of the products developed by doctoral candidates during their three-year research Programme, according to the indications provided by the Descriptive Document of the Quality Assurance System of the University of Salerno prepared by the University Quality Presidium (PQA) (https://www.pqa.unisa.it/attivita).

By being both flexible and responsible, and anti-dogmatic and professionalizing, the educational offer of the PhD Programme in Politics and Communication—POLICOM aims to adapt methodologies employed within humanistic knowledge and the Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) and to harmonize experimental methods and complex theoretical and cultural topics. To achieve these objectives, the Programme encourages the acquisition and socialization of understandings and competences that are both soft and hard, qualitative and quantitative, humanistic, theoretical, methodological and technological. It also heartily promotes both the access and use of basic and specialist tools for comprehension and analysis, evaluation and planning, and implementation and execution. It further fosters the development of hermeneutical, empirical and applied potential, in the various fields of sciences and cultures of communication, politics, law, society, history, public and private territorial policies, cultural heritage, management and tourism, and with particular attention to territories and countries marked by a delayed rate of innovation and a digital gap, even in global, comparative and multicultural perspectives.

In summary, the PhD Programme in Politics and Communication—POLICOM designs, implements and promotes original and innovative multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary and inter-sectoral training courses for highly and competitively qualified research and professional figures, capable to challenge, with intelligence and responsibility, the current global knowledge market and the emerging cultural, social and economic processes, which concern primarily, but not exclusively, universities, institutions and research bodies, the third sector and actors working within territorial and tourism policy, entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial, public and private, non-governmental organizations and non-profit associations.

Administrative headquarters

Department of Political and Communication Sciences—DISPC-POLICOM

Duration

Three years

Bodies

Board, which is constituted by the Coordinator of the PhD Programme in Politics and Communication—POLICOM, the Director of the Department of Political and Communication Sciences—DiSPC-POLICOM, the Presidents of the Degree courses of the DiSPC and the Curricular Representatives, coordinates and presides over relations with interested parties, institutions and companies, and deliberates on cultural, planning, strategic, political and government issues relating to the PhD programme.

Supra-curricular Didactic Committee, which is composed by the Coordinator and the three curricular Representatives, is called upon to define the types of research training activities declared within the current University Guidelines (including the lectures, seminars, exercises, supplementary activities, research activities, third mission/social impact activities, etc. for which attendance may or may not be mandatory), as well as planning, organizing and scheduling the three-year teaching offer of the PhD Programme.

The Didactic Committee also regulates and advises on the procedures for the assessment of doctoral students’ training and research, with particular emphasis on the semestral and annual reports required for admission to the following year or to the final exam (defence/viva).

In addition, the Didactic Committee performs the qualified and relevant identification of the Tutors and any co-tutors of the PhD theses, and, finally, the determination of the teaching and tutoring activities of the PhD students within the POLICOM PhD Programme, including carrying out the didactic activities that are both consistent with their training and integrative, such as Help Teaching and acting as thesis advisor, lessons and seminars, and third mission/social impact activities, which conform with the envisaged institutional tasks.

Quality Assurance Group for Doctoral Training and Teaching, which is constituted by the three curricular Representatives, at least one Representative from each disciplinary and scientific area present within and characterizing each Curriculum, regulates and manages the system that monitors the processes and results of research, teaching and third mission/social impact activities, organized in accordance with the indications provided by the Descriptive Document of the Quality Assurance System of the University of Salerno prepared by the University Quality Presidium (PQA) (https://www.pqa.unisa.it/attivita). This monitoring concerns the analysis of doctoral students’ courses of training and research, including research periods abroad, participation in conferences, and the quality and quantity of their scientific production. The Quality Assurance Group also systematically analyses the results of doctoral students’ opinions on the training process and on research, teaching and third mission activities, collected by means of questionnaires that are administered in accordance with the laws and regulations in effect and collated by the University.

All supplementary and evaluative training and teaching activities are illustrated in detail in the Guidelines and by the Educational Offer of the PhD School in Politics and Communication— POLICOM, to which reference is made (Attached).

Academic Council, which is composed of all the professors who have joined the PhD Programme in Politics and Communication—POLICOM, has the full and ultimate cultural, scientific and ethical responsibility for the contents, activities and behaviours of its members and doctoral students, in accordance with the provisions and regulations of the current University and Ministerial Regulations and the Code of Ethics for PhD Programmes, to which reference is made. The Coordinator submits to the approval of the Academic Council what has been deliberated, proposed and regulated by the Board, the Didactic Committee, and the Quality Assurance Group, as well as with regard to the evaluation committees designated for admission into the POLICOM PhD Programme and the final examinations of the three-year doctoral period.

Curricula

Curriculum A) Communication, Media, Languages and Society. Cultures and Sciences

The Communication, Media, Languages and Society: Cultures and Sciences Curriculum, which pivots on computational linguistic analysis, with original NLP software and application languages, and experimental psycholinguistics research, fashions a flexible and articulated network of humanistic soft skills and Key Enabling Technologies, of professionalizing and intersectoral scientific knowledge and skills, which are both theoretical and methodological, and hermeneutical and applied, and focused on cultural multi- and trans-disciplinary fields and content. These research practices are at the heart of the educational offer of the Curriculum, which intends to provide basic and specialized tools to understand, analyse, evaluate and plan the contemporary transformations enacted by new digital technologies on the forms of production, circulation, use and consumption of documediality and communicative, cultural and creative contents, whether artifacts, operational, natural or artificial (verbal, textual, visual and audio-visual) in the various public and private spheres of culture and society.

The Curriculum therefore transversally declines the contemporary cultures and sciences of Communication, Media, Languages and Society, and it openly integrates trans- and inter-disciplinary approaches, such as studies of aesthetics and visual and media culture, ethnographic research of habits and social narratives and digital value networks, qualitative, quantitative and mixed sociological methodologies, and comparative and intercultural analyses of digital narratives and institutional languages in local, national and supranational post-coronavirus policies, which are not limited to Europe and the Mediterranean.

1. The analysis and testing of languages and environments for the development of NLP tools and applications. Development and application of hybrid systems for the analysis and visualization of Big Data and Data Mining in the contemporary knowledge and communication society, including public and institutional, media and informal.
2. Basic theoretical and experimental research on cognitive processes and on language comprehension and production. Linguistic, psycholinguistic and neuro-imaging analysis based on oral and written stimuli.
3. Contemporary aesthetics of communication and of media environments, both analogue and digital. Theoretical, methodological and field research for the production of documentaries, interviews, narratives and participatory and therapeutic filmmaking.
4. History, theories and methodologies of contemporary visual culture, of images, languages, media environments, vision devices and practices of material and immaterial production and consumption. Everyday Aesthetics and Mobile Visual Culture.
5. Youth artistry and artification, creativity and communication. Informal practices and participatory cultures.
6. Narratives, changes and social mobility. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodologies, and narratological theories of cultural processes and communicative conflicts.
7. Ethnographies and digital cultural geographies and Digital Capital.

Employment and professional opportunities

Universities, institutes, and centres of excellence. Companies, public and private institutions specialized in the management of semantic content, Big Data, NLP, and DH. Innovative production of research and communication, both institutional and non-institutional, audio-visual and digital, Media and Social Media. Cultural and creative enterprises and industries. Public and private national and international institutions and bodies. Public administration, NGOs, non-profit organisations.

Members/SDS

Simona VIETRI (Representative, Full Professor, L-LIN/01), Felice ADDEO (Associate Professor, SPS/07), Jacqueline Aiello (Assistant Professor, L-LIN/12), Mariarosaria COLUCCIELLO (Associate Professor, L-LIN/07), Filippo FIMIANI (Full Professor, M-FIL/04), Alessandro Laudanna (Full Professor, M-PSI/01), Stefania LEONE (Associate Professor, SPS/07), Emiliana Mangone (Associate Professor, SPS/08), Mario MONTELEONE (Senior Researcher, L-LIN/01), Daniela VELLUTINO (Associate Professor, L-LIN/01).

From outside the University of Salerno / Foreign members

Giuseppina SAPIO (Associate Professor, L-ART/06, Paris 8), Max SCHLESER (Associate Professor, L- ART/06, Swinburne University Of Technology (Australia)), Max SILBERZTEIN (Associate Professor, L- LIN/01, University of Franche-Comté).

Curriculum B) Politics, Law and Institutions. Theory and History

The Politics, Law and Institutions: Theory and History Curriculum is structured and articulated around research and analysis methodologies that are traditionally similar but are currently experiencing profound epistemic, categorical and thematic renewals, such as the history, the historiography and theory, even comparative, of the formation processes of modern and contemporary political and juridical institutions. This also includes the constructions of the state- form and its transformations, governance techniques, Hard and Soft Power apparatuses, international relations and conflicts, now redefined in light of the post-Covid-19 geopolitical agendas and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Primary emphasis is placed on critical perspectives on transformations of subjectivities and on citizenship, feminist theories, gender studies, postcolonial and decolonial approaches, and on key words of modernity and contemporaneity, such as secularism, religious freedom and the public sphere, political and legal secularization, multiculturalism, humanitarianism and human rights, biopolitics and extra-human nature.

1. The historical and theoretical analysis of the formation processes of modern and contemporary political institutions, of the form-state and its transformations, of Hard Power and Soft Power. Theory, history and critical perspectives on international relations and conflicts, war, hostile figures, human rights, cosmopolitanism and humanitarianism.
2. Political rationality and techniques of government. Establishment and transformation of the relationship between public and private space. Change and crisis of representative democracy, the emergence of new subjectivities. Class, race, gender: intersectional movements and conflicts. Forms of populism, social democracy, movements. Welfare and Webfare, poverty and social exclusion.
3. The theoretical study and empirical research of social change, of processes and situations of social and territorial inequality and of cohesion policies, at national and international levels, also in a comparative historical perspective.
4. Theoretical and epistemological research on the relationships among human nature, extra- human nature, forms of life and political institutions, and biopolitics.
5. Theoretical and historical analysis of legal institutions, public law and private law. Secularism, public space, multiculturalism, religious freedom and the public sphere, analysis of political and legal secularization processes.
6. Comparative, information and communication law; Advertising Law; Copyright.
7. History of conflicts, cultural processes and the transmission of ideas in the political and historical literature of the modern age. Metaphorology and narratology.

Employment and professional opportunities

Universities, research institutes and centres of historico-cultural documentation and institutional archiving, EU bodies. Digital networks. Public and private research. International institutions, NGOs, non-profit organisations, public administration bodies. Public and private institutes, parties, unions, research networks dedicated to public policy, international cooperation, activism. Publishing.

Members/SDS

Adalgiso AMENDOLA (Representative, Full Professor, IUS/20), Virgilio D’ANTONIO (Full Professor, IUS/02), Silvana D’ALESSIO (Associate Professor, M-STO/02), Massimo de CAROLIS DI PROSSEDI (Full Professor, SPS/01), Rosanna FATTIBENE (Associate Professor, IUS/09), Sandro Luce (Assistant Professor, SPS/01), Gianfranco MACRI’ (Full Professor, IUS/11), Graziano PALAMARA (Associate Professor, SPS/06), Roberto PARRELLA (Associate Professor, M-STO/04), Maria Gabriella STANZIONE (Associate Professor, IUS/02), Giordana STRAZZA (Assistant Professor, IUS/10), Giuseppe Andrea Teti (Associate Professor, SPS/04).

From outside the University of Salerno / Foreign members

Rocco Giuseppe MOLES (Undersecretary, Department of Information and Publishing, Presidency of the Council of Ministers (Italy)), Francisco GÓMEZ ORTIZ (Dean, Catholic University of Colombia; Coordinator, Network of Catholic Universities of Colombia), Raoul PUCCINELLI (Full Professor, IUS/02, National University of Rosario (Argentina)).

Curriculum C) Territory, Businesses and Sustainability. Global strategies and dynamics

The Territory, Businesses and Sustainability: Global strategies and dynamics Curriculum intends to train highly qualified specialists who, drawing on scientific methodologies, are capable of delineating place-based development policies and business strategies that are attentive to the imperatives of the ecological transition and to the interactions between local contexts and global networks. The Curriculum has a clear multi-disciplinary approach, which combines geographical, business, historical and sociological sciences, with the aim of promoting individual talents and building qualified and personalized research strands in a wide variety of scientific fields, which can be grouped in several principal areas, including: territorial planning and urban government, analysis of socio-economic inequalities and territorial development processes, corporate sustainability and competitive advantage, social innovation and Community-Led local development (CLLD) approaches, management and marketing of tourism systems, dynamic legacies and decision-making processes.

The Curriculum intends to promote research capable of supporting new models of territorial and business governance and management based on the principles of sustainable development and social responsibility through innovative tools, strategies and products and in line with the agenda of the EU Action Plan 2030.

1. Studies, methodologies and instruments for the analysis of urban and regional systems (environmental frameworks, historical territorial matrices, context resources, organizational forms, etc.) and for the design of territorialized and Community-Led local development policies and strategies.
2. Strategic studies to address the global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, urbanization, socio-economic inequalities and power relations; methodologies and tools to support geospatial analysis (GIS, remote sensing, etc.).
3. Theories and methods for the governance and management of enterprises producing goods and services, considering the unitary nature of the enterprise system and the relationships it maintains with the competitive context; methodologies to address management challenges in support of digital and green transitions.
4. Analysis of corporate marketing and communication strategies and tactics to support corporate social responsibility processes and corporate reputation development; research techniques for the analysis of the behaviour of digitally-empowered consumers and the evolutionary dynamics of brands.
5. Historical-comparative analysis of the global dynamics of change, of the processes of international cooperation and national and transnational identity construction/deconstruction, with particular emphasis on power, development, conflicts and the human mobility-inequality nexus.
6. Perspectives and methods of analysis of social processes in territorial projection, with particular reference to the causes, characteristics and consequences of mobility phenomena.
7. Studies, methodologies and tools for the analysis and management of sustainable tourism systems, the planning of destinations, the assessment of the impact of tourism on local communities, the conservation and enhancement of the cultural and natural heritage and the promotion of eco-sustainable practices.

Employment and professional opportunities

Universities, institutes, and research centres. Public bodies and administration; Consultancy firms and public-private consortia for local development; Local, regional and national tourism development agencies; National and international institutions dedicated to the management and sustainable development of territories; consultancy firms specializing in marketing and destination communication. Public administration, NGOs, non-profit organisations.

Members/SDS

Paolo PICIOCCHI (Representative, Full Professor, SECS-P/08), Massimiliano BENCARDINO (Full Professor, M-GGR/02), Luca CASTAGNA (Associate Professor, M-STO/04), Maria Giovanna CONFETTO (Senior Researcher, SECS-P/08), Germana CITARELLA (Associate Professor, M-GGR/01), Francesca CONTE (Assistant Professor, SECS-P/08), Stefania ECCHIA (PA, SECS-P/12), Giorgia IOVINO (Full Professor, M-GGR/02), Domenico MADDALONI (Full Professor, SPS/07), Francesco POLESE (Full Professor, SECS-P/08), Roberta TROISI (Associate Professor, SECS-P/10), Giovanna TRUDA (Associate Professor, SPS/12), Agostino VOLLERO (Associate Professor, SECS-P/08).

From outside the University of Salerno / Foreign members

Angela CRESTA (Associate Professor, M-GGR/02, University of Sannio).

Didactics / Plan of Study

The Plan of Studies counts are available at the associated web page: Link

Didactics/Teaching

The teaching list is available at the associated web page: Link