RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Media and Generations in Italian Society

University Co-ordinator

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - SCIENZE DELLA COMUNICAZIONE E DELLO SPETTACOLO - ()

Research Unit Leader

Fausto Colombo

Description

The research intends to explore the issue of the relationship between media and generations from both the speculative and empirical viewpoints, through a non-standard investigation over Milan’s metropolitan area. In particular, two dimensions are to be probed:

- The relationship between generational belonging and media (old and new), both in terms of each generation’s own media experiences - with respect to the single medium and the media diet’s internal equilibriums – as well as the representations each generation provides of the media themselves (their role, importance in society and life, and so on);
- The relationship between generational belonging and media items, both in terms of specific objects fruition and genre and theme articulations.

The integration between the two dimensions of the inquiry should lead to an higher understanding of the complex “social construction of generations”, intended as a process of genesis and self-recognizing of cohorts in which biographical and historical data, social discourse and self-reflexivity continually intersect. The research shall thus hold as objective the delineation of different generations’ semantics, in order to build a taxonomy of the many forms of relationship they can establish with media and media supply.

Given the research goal, non-standard sociological research tools appear more appropriate, insofar as they can probe the generations’ identitary experience in relation to the media system.
In particular, the non-structured and non-directive interview is to be employed both for groups and individuals. With respect to group interviews, subjects belonging to natural groups are to be targeted considering both their location in different generational cohorts (those born between 1940 and 1952, currently between 65 and 53 years of age; the so-called baby boomers, born between 1953 and 1965, currently between 52 and 40; those born between 1966 and 1978, currently between 39 and 27 years of age; those between 1979 and 1985, currently 26 and 20 years of age) and the territorial variable (as anticipated, Milan’s metropolitan area).
In particular, generational belonging shall be developed from the ingroup sharing of landmark events defining a peculiar intertwining between individual and collective biographies.
With respect to the individual interview, from the groupings shall proceed the targeting of both biographically highly significant individuals and individuals exposed to some of the media texts deemed exemplar in research unit III and IV.
This phase shall thus serve the purpose of comparing the media semantic emerging from the natural groups phase (conducted by the present unit as well as units II and V) and that emerging from the media text breakdown of units III and IV.

Operatively, the work shall be broken down in the following phases:

1. Theoretical probing of the generation notion in and relative to media, through a bibliographic review of the national and international debate and the secondary reading of cultural consumption data in Italy;
2. Inter-unit sharing of point 1 and comparison with other local units’ theoretical approaches, holding into consideration previous research experiences on the subjects proposed by the different research units, with the aim of building a common theoretical and analytic framework;
3. On the ground of the first elaborations emerging from the confronting of research units, an international workshop shall be designed and organized, in order to focus research issues. The present research unit shall take care of this workshop;
4. Joint development of research tools and of the field inquiry target with units II and V;
5. First test phase of the developed tools
6. Testing and discussion of testing results with units II and V
7. Research phase on 12 natural groups (3 for each generational cohort) in Milan
8. Sharing and comparison of the findings with units II and V
9. Research units shall then gather to outline individual interviews on the ground of the corpus of texts analyzed by units III and IV.
10. New test phase of the developed tools
11. Comparisons of test phase results with units II and V
12. 16 individual interviews (4 for each generational cohort) in Milan and 16 individual interviews in Rome
13. Inter-unit comparison and sharing of the results.
14. Methodology presentation and diffusion of the results through an international symposium, which the present unit, as central unit, shall be responsible of in terms of promotion and organization.

In addition to the proceedings of the international workshop, this research unit shall take care of publishing the research findings in a joint volume. Results spreading shall be further guaranteed by the online accessibility, during the research operative phase, of both the project and in-progresses through a web link located on the webpage of the research centre related to t it research (as well as on the webpages of Unit II and Unit V).

With respect of the inter-unit coordination, in addition to meetings and workshops, internet-based voice-over-ip conference calls and videoconferences are to be employed, thus reducing transportation costs but ensuring uninterrupted cooperation between researchers.