Publications

Announcing the Call for Papers and Call for Book Chapters for the VI Edition of the ILIS Conference

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We are pleased to announce that the

Call for Papers and the Call for Book Chapters

associated with the VI Edition of the International Conference ILIS are now officially open.

As part of the 2026 ILIS programme, two publication opportunities are available:

  • A Topical Collection in the journal Societies (MDPI) – all details are available at the official call page.
  • A Book project with IGI Global, which welcomes chapter proposals aligned with the themes of this year’s conference (details here).

Both publication venues are closely connected to the ILIS Conference, whose Call for Abstracts is already open.

We warmly encourage scholars, practitioners, and emerging researchers to take part in this process.

Submitting an abstract and presenting at the conference offers several advantages:

  • Early pre-evaluation of your work during the conference;
  • A collective pre-review from peers and the ILIS scientific community;
  • For the MDPI Topical Collection, a special 10% discount on APCs is granted to all ILIS 2026 conference presenters.

While participation in the conference provides significant benefits, external submissions are also welcome.

All contributions—whether originating within or outside the ILIS conference community—must respect the deadlines established by each call, which have been scheduled to align with the conference taking place in May 2026.

We look forward to receiving your proposals and to welcoming you to the VI Edition of ILIS.

3rd edition of the Summer School in Digital Methods for Critical Consumer Studies

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We would like to highlight the following initiative

Applications to the 

3rd edition of the Summer School in Digital Methods for Critical Consumer Studies 

are open until June 6, 2025 (EXTENDED: June 16).The DMCCS Summer School will take place in beautiful Como, Italy – from September 22 to 26, 2025.This year’s theme is: Artificial intelligence as a methodological resource and its applications for consumer culture research.

The School will focus on the intersection between Digital Methods, consumer culture, and AI technologies such as large language models (LLMs), exploring both technical and critical perspectives. The programme includes lectures, workshops, keynote talks, and group work, delivered by an international and interdisciplinary faculty. Confirmed keynote speakers are: Joonas Rokka (Emlyon Business School), Giorgia Aiello (University of Milan) and Gabriele Colombo (Politecnico di Milano). The Summer School is organized by the University of Milan, in collaboration with: SOMET – PhD Programme in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research, Milan School of Media and Communication, PhD in Communication Science and Practice, University of Pavia.

To participate in the Summer School, candidates must send their applications at this email address: laura.bruschi@unimi.it, by 16 June 2025 at the very latest. Applications must entail a CV and presentation letter, containing: a) brief bio; b) interests of research; c) motivation to participate in the Summer School.      

You can find the full programme and practical information here: https://dmcs.lakecomoschool.org/

We welcome applications from MA and PhD students, early-career researchers, and professionals interested in digital methods, AI, media, and consumer studies.

The DMCCS School Directors: A. Caliandro, A. Gandini, M. Airoldi (University of Milan)

Cultural Machines

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Caliandro, A., Bennato, D. (2022). Cultural Machines. Mediascapes. Vol. 20, 2.

Type of publication:

Dall’avvento dei big data, numerosi scienziati sociali hanno cercato di comprendere il potere culturale in essi incorporato, estraendo dati qualitativi da un’enorme quantità di dati digitali quantitativi. Nonostante gli eccezionali progressi in questa direzione, l’interpretazione culturale dei contenuti digitali su larga scala è ancora agli inizi.

Obiettivo di questo numero è quello di offrire nuove possibilità metodologiche e fornire strumenti innovativi per l’analisi qualitativa degli oggetti culturali digitali.

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The impact of digital on research, socialization, and communication processes

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Addeo, F., Mauceri, S., Punziano G., (2022). The impact of digital on research, socialization, and communication processes. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 14, 3.

Type of publication:

Special section

  • Felice Addeo, Sergio Mauceri, Gabriella Punziano. The Impact of Digital on Research, Socialisation, and Communication Processes
  • Antonio Fasanella, Maria Paola Faggiano. Italian Secondary School Students and the Distance Learning Experience: From Current Critical Issues to Future Opportunities, Reflecting on VR
  • Maria Paola Faggiano, Sergio Mauceri. Italian University Students facing Distance Learning: the Results of a Panel Web Survey
  • Alessandra Decataldo, Brunella Fiore. Digital-Insecurity and Overload: the Role of Technostress in Lecturers’ Work-Family Balance
  • Kwan Meng Lee, Yaprak Pınar. Mentoring and Digital Learning to Enhance the Impact of Social Sciences
  • Mette Rudvin, Edoardo Di Gennaro, Roberta Teresa Di Rosa. Training Language Mediators and Interpreters through Embodied Cognition, Immersive Learning and Virtual Reality: Didactic, Organizational and Cost Benefits
  • Angela Delli Paoli, Giuseppe Masullo. The Desexualization of Society. A Digital Ethnography on the Asexual Community
  • Maria Carmela Catone, Fiorenzo Parziale. Digital Practices, Communicative Codes and Social Inequalities: a Case Study During the Pandemic in Italy
  • Ciro Clemente De Falco, Gabriella Punziano, Domenico Trezza. The Vaccine Is Now Here. The State-Regions Governance Between Converging Plans and Diverging Digital Communication
  • Maria Dentale. Usefulness of Digital Methods in Evaluating School Work Alternance Projects: How Actors and Contexts Under Observation Can Interconnect

Articles

  • Andrea Parma. Who Choose Private Schools in a Free Choice Institutional Setting? Evidence from Milan
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Exploring Everyday Digital Life

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Ragedda, M., Ruiu, M. (2022). Exploring Everyday Digital Life. Culture e Studi del Sociale, vol. 7, 1.

Type of publication:

Editoriale

  • Massimo Ragnedda, Maria Laura Ruiu. Digital society: risks and challenges

Saggi

  • Suana Acampa, Noemi Crescentini, Giuseppe Michele Padricelli. Is it still disintermediated? The role of the influencer news-maker in the social platform era
  • Elisa Caponera, Francesco Annunziata, Laura Palmerio. Computer and Information Literacy at the eighth grade: differences between boys and girls
  • Michela Cavagnuolo. The Italian perspective on the use of Big Data in Sociological Field: Implications, Empirical Findings and an Impact Analysis on the Discipline
  • Ahana Choudhury. De-Sanitising the ‘New Normal’: The Lived Experiences of ‘Digital Research’ in context of the COVID-19 India

Esperienze e confronti

  • Antonella Capalbi. Intersezioni di sguardi. La rappresentazione intersezionale in alcune serie Netflix di successo
  • Rossana Cataldo, Gabriella Punziano, Barbara Saracino, Ferdinando Iazzetta. Expert construction during the Italian vaccination campaign against COVID-19: positional, reputational, and communicational spheres in comparison
  • Tatiana Smirnova, Roman Smirnov. Female caregivers for elderly relatives in Russia: social barriers and stereotypes

Note e commenti

  • Sabato Aliberti. Book review. La violenza spiegata. Riflessioni ed esperienze di ricerca sulla violenza di genere di Felice Addeo, Grazia Moffa (a cura di). Franco Angeli, 2020.
  • Ferdinando Iazzetta. Book review. COVID-19 in Italy Social Behavior and Governmental Policies, by Lucia Velotti, Gabriella Punziano, Felice Addeo, Routledge, London 2022
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Affettività invisibili

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Masullo, G., Coppola, M., (2022). Affettività Invisibili. Storie e vissuti di persone e famiglie transgender. PM Edizioni. Milano.

Type of publication:

Il concetto di famiglia ha acquisito, nel corso dei decenni, maggiori forme di legittimazione sul piano scientifico anche se, tuttavia, i percorsi di analisi hanno sottolineato una posizione tradizionale che non contempla le famiglie omogenitoriale. Ciò partendo dall’assunto che la capacità genitoriale corrisponda a un dato tipo di famiglia, e non alla sua principalmente funzione del prendersi cura. Questo ha comportato, inoltre, un lasciare ai margini, le esistenze oltre che i problemi socio-politici incontrati da individui che esistono al di fuori delle categorie più normalizzate (quelle di gay e lesbiche cisgender), e che restano fuori (per scelta o per costrizione) dalla questione della genitorialità e del matrimonio (unione civile).

Questo volume cerca, dunque, intende proprio dare voce alle esperienze di persone e coppie transgender, ai vari modi in cui le nozioni di famiglia sono decostruite e ricostruite per adattarsi a identità, sessualità e disposizioni non normative. Dalle storie emerge come la scelta “del fare famiglia” delle persone transgender (sia in coppia switch sia in coppia gender-mixed) si basa principalmente su due aspetti: la buona riuscita del percorso di transizione di genere (di uno o di entrambi i partner), il riconoscimento sociale della coppia. I vissuti qui descritti permettono di rendere evidente gli immaginari che riproducono queste nuove tipologie di famiglia (sulle quali nel nostro Paese mancano analisi e ricerche specifiche) oltre che inedite forme di oppressione che si evidenziano “in” e “out” la comunità arcobaleno, sullo sfondo di modelli ideali forgiati e diffusi nell’orizzonte etero-omonormativo.

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Non-Binary Family Configurations: Intersections of Queerness and Homonormativity

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Masullo, G., Gilley, B., (2022). Non-Binary Family Configurations: Intersections of Queerness and Homonormativity. Springer, Berlino.

Type of publication:

This volume provides a close look at the ways in which LGBTQ2 people form familial bonds. It brings together stories from non-binary families across continents and cultures and recenters care as a foundational value for creating familial ties. This volume therefore addresses a gap in the literature concerning non-binary family configurations by going beyond the legal battle for non-binary partnership rights. In recent discussions on marriage equality, the notion of familial bonds, which was important in early discussions on non-binary family research, has been decentered in favor of legal and homonormative understandings of individual rights. This volume centers familial bonds as the first step toward reimagining how to do research on the family and adds to research on family studies as well as gender studies.

Students and researchers of sociology, anthropology, social work, gender studies, family research, well-being research, and anyone else working on or with non-binary families will find this book highly topical and interesting.

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Handbook of Research on Advanced Research Methodologies for a Digital Society

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Punziano, G., Delli Paoli, A. (2021). Handbook of Research on Advanced Research Methodologies for a Digital Society. IGI Global, Pennsylvania.

Type of publication: (two volumes)

Description

Doing research is an ever-changing challenge for social scientists. This challenge is harder than ever today as current societies are changing quickly and in many, sometimes conflicting, directions. Social phenomena, personal interactions, and formal and informal relationships are becoming more borderless and disconnected from the anchors of the offline “reality.” These dynamics are heavily marking our time and are suggesting evolutionary challenges in the ways we know, interpret, and analyze the world. Internet and computer-mediated communication (CMC) is being incorporated into every aspect of daily life, and social life has been deeply penetrated by the internet. This is due to recent technological developments that increase the scope and range of online social spaces and the forms and time of participation such as Web 2.0, which widened the opportunities for user-generated content, the emergence of an “internet of things,” and of ubiquitous mobile devices that make it possible to always be connected. This implies an adjustment to epistemological and methodological stances for conducting social research and an adaption of traditional social research methods to the specificities of online interactions in the digital society.

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Research Methods in the Digital Society

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Masullo, G., Addeo, F. (2021, a cura di). Research Methods in the Digital Society. Italian Sociological Review, vol. 11, 4S.

Type of publication:

Research Methods in the Digital Society. Vol. 11, 4S

Table of Contents

  • Felice Addeo, Giuseppe Masullo. Studying the Digital Society: Digital Methods between Tradition and Innovation in Social Research.
  • Enrica Amaturo, Biagio Aragona. Critical Optimism: A Methodological Posture to Shape the Future of Digital Social Research
  • Rita Bichi. Conducting Social Research Online: Empathetic Concern and Sociability
  • Sonia Stefanizzi. The Use of Big Data: Some Epistemological and Methodological Considerations
  • Davide Bennato. The Digital Traces’ Diamond. A Proposal to Put Together a Quantitative Approach, Interpretive Methods, and Computational Tools
  • Alessandro Caliandro. Repurposing Digital Methods in a Post-API Research Environment: Methodological and Ethical Implications
  • Angela Delli Paoli, Valentina D’Auria. Digital Ethnography: A Systematic Literature Review
  • Felice Addeo, Gabriella Punziano, Giuseppe Michele Padricelli. Using Digital Methods to Shed Light on “Border Phenomena”: A Digital Ethnography of Dark Tourism Practices in Time of COVID-19
  • Maria Paola Faggiano, Raffaella Gallo. Content Analysis and Digital Data: Methodological Solutions between Tradition and Innovation. The Case of Digital Campaigns as Meeting Ground of Expertises and Research Perspectives
  • Giuseppe Masullo, Marianna Coppola. Scripts and Sexual Markets of Transgender People on Online Dating Apps: A Netnographic Study
  • Valentina Nerino. Tricked into Supporting: A Study on Computational Propaganda Persuasion Strategies
  • Marco Serino. Culture and Networks in Online Social Fields. Studying the Duality of Culture and Structure in Social Media through Bourdieu’s Theory and Social Network Analysis
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Between Infodemic and Pandemic: On-line Researches in the Time of COVID-19

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Masullo, G., Maiello, G. (2021). Between Infodemic and Pandemic: On-line Researches in the Time of COVID-19. Cultura e Studi del sociale. Vol. 6, 1.

Type of publication:

Editoriale

  • MAIELLO,G. – Social and Individual Processes at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis, 117-122

Saggi

  • DE FALCO, C.C. & ROMEO, E. – Social Sciences Research Methods Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic. A PRISMA Systematic Review, 123-141
  • DI LISIO, M. & TREZZA, D. – Digital Methods to Study (and Reduce) the Impact of Disinformation, 143-156
  • PALMIERI, F., PAROLA, J., SALLUSTO PALMIERO, M. & TOFANI, R. – Diaries from Isolation. Digital Testimonials’ Analysis During COVID-19 Emergency, 157-174
  • RAMA, I. – The Coronavirus Conversation on Reddit: A Mixed Methods Approach, 175-192

Esperienze e confronti

  • CARLEO, M. – Being a Subject Expert During Covid-Era: An Autoethnographic Experience, 193-200
  • STAVOLO, A. & LUONGO, A. – The Political Communication of Italia Viva on Instagram: From its Formation to the COVID-19 Emergency, 201-210
  • ADDEO, F. ,PUNZIANO, G. & PADRICELLI, G.M. – Prohibitions, Pleasures, and Disasters: Entering the Online “Red zone” as an Experience of Digital Dark Tourism in Time of COVID-19, 211-218

Note e commenti

  • COPPOLA, M. & MASULLO, G. – The COVID-19 Pandemic through the Eyes of Italian Young Hikikomori, 219-226
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