About
Research topic
Digital literacy in theory and practice: Learning from how experts and advocates engage in civic life
Gianfranco’s academic interests include digital literacy and resilience, citizenship and education, participation and democratic theory. His interest in digital literacy encompasses not only a focus on education and the learning of how to be literate in the digital age, but also a focus on the civic opportunities that digital literacy entails for citizens of all ages. In addition, Gianfranco is interested in the phenomenon of misinformation and in the practical policy implications related to the promotion of digital literacy in the context of education, civic engagement and democracy.
Employing a mixed qualitative methodology, Gianfranco’s doctoral project looks at the intersection of digital literacy with civic engagement. It focuses on two social categories in the United Kingdom: digital experts (e.g. information, IT, media professionals) and civic advocates (e.g. community councillors, political party candidates, activists). By drawing on a dialectical understanding of utopian thinking as relying on both utopianism and dystopianism, Gianfranco approaches the notion of critical digital literacy as incorporating users’ utopian/dystopian imaginaries of society in the digital age. Such an approach suggests that as utopian thinking projects utopian possibilities in synergy with awareness of dystopian limitations, critical digital literacy is essential for users to pursue civic opportunities online provided they understand the internet’s democratising potentials and structural constraints.
Supervisors: Professor Sonia Livingstone and Dr Ellen Helsper
Biography
Gianfranco’s research at LSE is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. His academic background is in international communications studies, in which he has both bachelor's and master's degrees, with a focus on media studies and foreign languages. In addition to Italian, Gianfranco is fluent in English and French and has intermediate-level Mandarin Chinese. In 2008, he obtained his bachelor's degree in Italy, final mark 110/110 cum laude. Before doing his master’s, he worked in Gaziantep, Turkey, as an assistant to the Honorary Italian Consul and Italian teacher for the Italian Institute of Culture. After a couple of years, Gianfranco moved to Ningbo, China, to teach English as a second language and study Chinese. He then established an import/export company in Brussels, Belgium, for which he worked as a co-manager. After returning to university to focus on his academic career, in 2014 he was awarded his master’s degree with distinction from the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China, with the support of a Category A scholarship provided by the Chinese government. Gianfranco is now in the final stage of his doctoral research in the Media and Communications Department at LSE. He has worked in this department as a Research Assistant on the Toddlers and Tablets project, as a Graduate Teaching Assistant leading the Dissertation Study Skills course for MSc students, and as a Classroom Assistant for Professor Bart Cammaerts on MC401 Mediated Resistance and Activism. Currently, besides writing his PhD thesis, Gianfranco is working as a Research Associate on the EXPloRing undeErStandingS for a Digital Resilience Scale for pre-teens (EXPRESS DRS) project, led by Dr Simon Hammond from the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia.
Expertise
Media Literacy; Digital Literacy; Digital Resilience; Citizenship and Education; Participation and Democratic theory
Publications
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