INTERVIEW: Dr Massimo Ragnedda Copy

Teacher

Dr Massimo Ragnedda joined Northumbria in September 2012 as Lecturer in Mass Communications.

Prior to joining the University of Northumbria, I worked at the University of Sassari from 2006 to 2012. During this time, I’ve worked as a lecturer and supervisor of research, published widely and delivered presentations in several countries.

I have a strong interest in developments in new media and theories of media, communication and culture.

In particular my research is divided in three main areas: First, I am interested in the mass media as a tool of social control in a democracy and the role of surveillance in a digital era, moving from author as Foucault and Deleuze and looking for the connection with new technologies of Communication and in particular internet and web 2.0.

I am also interested in the so-called digital divide and the stratification in the access and use of the internet. In particular I am interested in the new digital exclusion in a society of information, where having or not having information may create new forms of digital inequalities with clear consequences to a democracy.

A third major focus of my research is the propaganda, as well as how propagandists, both in democracy and totalitarian regime, deploy the mass media in the formation of public opinion. In particular I focus my research on the critical analysis of the economic and cultural context in which we live, stressing the role of the cultural industry and the role of PR agency, the Advertising Agency, as a tool of propaganda in open societies.

For more information visit

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/our-staff/r/massimo-ragnedda/