Research Team

Fabio Giglietto, PhD, is an associate professor at the Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, where he also teaches social media analysis. His main research interests are theory of information, communication, and society with a specific focus on the relationship between social systems and new technologies. On these topics, he has published extensively in journals such as the Journal of Communication; Information, Communication and Society; Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media; Social Media + Society; and Social Science Computer Review.

Since 2010, he has been a member of the board of the Research Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association. He is also a member of the International Communication Association, the Association of Internet Researchers, and the Italian Association of Political Communication. Since 2014 he has been the editor of the Journal of Sociocybernetics (ISSN 1607-86667).

In 2017, he led Mapping Italian News Media Political Coverage in the Lead-up of 2018 General Election (https://elezioni2018.news/). This project was supported, in part, by a grant from the Foundation Open Society Institute in cooperation with the Information Program of the Open Society Foundations.

A full, up-to-date list of publications is available at https://goo.gl/pbXyBd.

Giada Marino (Ph.D.) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo as part of the research team of Verai ai - VERification Assisted by Artificial Intelligence. She is a former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sassari where she was part of the research team of the relevant national interest project (PRIN) I-POLHYS - Investigating POLarization in HYbrid media Systems. Since 2018 she is part of the Mapping Italian News Research Program. She published her studies in relevant national and international journals such as Social Media+Society, Information, Communication and Society, First Monday, Frontiers in Sociology, Comunicazione Politica, and Problemi dell’informazione. Her research examines the relationship between information disorder and political polarization, with a specific emphasis on citizen engagement on social media platforms.

Nicola Righetti, PhD in sociology and social research, is a researcher in Computational Communication Science and adjunct professor of advanced data analysis at the Department of Communication of the University of Vienna (Austria). He is also research associate at the Computational Communication Lab of the same university, and former research fellow at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo (Italy). His work focuses on the study of digital communication around relevant political and social phenomena through computational and statistical methods.

Luca Rossi is associate professor in the Department of Digital Design of the IT University of Copenhagen and scientific coordinator of the Data Science & Society Lab. He is active in the field of digital methods for social sciences. His research has always been highly interdisciplinary, trying to connect traditional sociological approaches with computational approaches. He did research on online social network sites and online information propagation during crisis events. At the same time, he worked on extending social network analysis techniques for social media analysis. Within this field of research, he is working on new approaches for unstructured communities detection and mapping based on the study of multiplex networks.

Since 2010, he has been a member of the board of the Research Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association. He is also a member of the International Communication Association, the Association of Internet Researchers, and the Italian Association of Political Communication. Since 2014 he has been the editor of the Journal of Sociocybernetics (ISSN 1607-86667).

In 2017, he led Mapping Italian News Media Political Coverage in the Lead-up of 2018 General Election (https://elezioni2018.news/). This project was supported, in part, by a grant from the Foundation Open Society Institute in cooperation with the Information Program of the Open Society Foundations.

A full, up-to-date list of publications is available at https://goo.gl/pbXyBd.

Samuel Olaniran is a PhD candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand and his thesis focused on the dynamics of disinformation and how political actors exploit the technological affordances of digital media to manipulate opinions during elections in Nigeria. His research interest focuses on how technology is impacting Internet cultures in the Global South in ways that change politics (e.g., the idea that elections are controlled by a small group of professional campaigners, consultants, and tech giants who often write the frame). His research explores how social and political contexts influence interpretation of critical phenomena such as technology, democracy, mis/disinformation and digital authoritarianism distinct from global framings. He is author of “Understanding digital media” and recently co-authored article titled “Demystifying the COVID-19 Infodemic: Conspiracies, context, and the agency of users”.

Massimo Terenzi is a PhD student at the University of Urbino. In his PhD project, he researches disinformation and media manipulation and their implications on market and brand value of companies, in the realm of critical internet studies. Additionally, his research interests include cryptocurrencies and blockchain, on which he published an article in Mediascapes journal (2020). He completed the 360​​/Digital Sherlocks program at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, focusing on disinformation and open source methodologies. Massimo has been collaborating with the Mapping Italian News research team since 2020.

Sawood Anwar is a PhD student at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino. He completed a master's in business administration and then a master's in commerce. He got NET (University Grant Commission, New Delhi) as Assistant Professor. His area of interest is in Human Resources, Finance, Language, digital media and Communication. In his PhD project, he is working with MINE Research Program on Mapping Coordinated Networks That Circulate Problematic Health Content in India and Nigeria.

Bruna Almeida Paroni is a PhD student at the University of Urbino “Carlo Bo.” In her doctoral research project, she aims to investigate dis/misinformation analysis, digital content manipulation, and their implications on the political and social landscape of Brazil. Her research interests also include political communication, exploring the relationship between Evangelical churches, authoritarianism, and far-right discourse in Brazil. Bruna has been collaborating with the Mapping Italian News research team since 2023.

Laura Iannelli (PhD) is associate professor in sociology of culture and communication at the University of Sassari (Italy), where she teaches political communication, public relations, and digital media and communication.

Her primary research addresses the complex practices of participation in the production and circulation of political information within the contemporary media ecosystems. She has extensively published on these topics. Her authored works include two monographs: Hybrid Politics: Media and Participation (Sage, 2016) and Facebook & co: Sociologia dei social media (Guerini, 2010). She is a member of the editorial board of the international scientific journal ICS - Information, Communication & Society.

In 2017, she was granted principal investigator of a two-year research project entitled Facebook & Co: Disinformation in the Hybrid Media System by the Autonomous Region of Sardinia. The project developed innovative survey techniques that leverage the Facebook Ads system; a paper was published in 2018 in Social Science Computer Review. Since November 2017, she has participated in the research network activated on the project entitled Mapping Italian News Media Political Coverage in the Lead-up of 2018 General Election (MINE), funded by Open Society Foundations and coordinated by Professor Fabio Giglietto (University of Urbino).

Augusto Valeriani (PhD, Siena University, Italy) is associate professor in sociology of communication at the Political and Social Sciences Department of the University of Bologna and codirector of the master’s in new media and marketing communication at BBS, the University of Bologna Business School. His research focuses on political communication, digital media, and journalism. He is also a member of the academic board of the PhD program in political and social sciences of the University of Bologna and was a visiting research fellow at the University of Westminster, London (2005–2006) and at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania (2009–2010). Valeriani has published three monographs and several book chapters on topics related to journalism studies, political communication, and global communication, with a focus on digital media. He has authored articles appearing in several international journals, including Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication; New Media and Society; International Journal of Press/Politics; Information, Communication and Society; Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication; Sage Open; and Italian Political Science Review.

Anna Stanziano has a PhD in Politics, Policy and Globalization. She is a post-doc researcher at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo. Her research interests include political communication and journalism. She has worked in particular on journalistic coverage of corruption, the perception of corruption and the relationship between media and religion. Her publications include contributions in volume and articles in scientific journals (including “Comunicazione Politica”, “Polis”, “Problemi dell’Informazione” and “International Journal of Strategic Communication”). She participated in several research projects concerning corruption and anti-corruption activities, including the “Anticorrp” project (Anticorruption Policies Revisited. Global Trends and European Responses to the Challenge of Corruption) funded by the European Commission through the Seventh Framework Programme, the “Apta Mod” project (Administrative Prevention through Targeted Anti-corruption models for candidate countries) funded by the European Union’s Hercule III programme and the “PolitiCAnti” project (The politicisation of Corruption and Anticorruption Strategies), MIUR PRIN 2017 Project. She is also member of the research group “JRP” (Journalistic Role Performance Project), a cross-national project established in 2013 and coordinated by Claudia Mellado (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile) to systematically analyse the state of journalistic cultures in the new media landscape across the world.

Roberto Mincigrucci has a PhD in Politics, Policy and Globalization. He is a post-doc researcher at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo and he is temporary professor of “communication and emergency management” at the University of Perugia. His research interests include political communication and journalism. He has worked in particular on mediated scandals, celebrity politics and the relationship between journalism and corruption. He has authored articles appearing in several international journals such as European Journal of Communication and Contemporary Italian Politics. He participated in several research projects concerning corruption and anti-corruption activities, including the 'Anticorrp' project (Anticorruption Policies Revisited. Global Trends and European Responses to the Challenge of Corruption) funded by the European Commission through the Seventh Framework Programme, the 'Apta Mod' project (Administrative Prevention through Targeted Anti- corruption models for candidate countries) funded by the European Union's Hercule III programme and the Politicanti project (The politicisation of Corruption and Anticorruption Strategies), MIUR PRIN 2017 Project.