Meaningful Media. Survey on the Search for Meaning in the Media Sphere

editors Francesco Galofaro, Nicolò Villani and Carlo Alberto Bondi.

deadline: 9 December 2025

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It’s been ten years since Netflix arrived in Italy, and we can now see a consolidation of post-Convergence logics within an increasingly multifaceted media market. In this context, there are today divergent views regarding the role that structural approaches can play within the debate on Media Studies.
This issue aims to carry out a survey of methodologies, research, findings, and positions in the study of media, encompassing a broad disciplinary field — Semiotics, Ethnosemiotics, Sociosemiotics, Ethnography, Cultural Anthropology, etc. — that allows us to focus on how meaning is interpreted in the media today.
The goal here is to foster a fruitful dialogue between disciplinary approaches; this would serve as resources when engaging with the complex and heterogeneous debate that surrounds media studies.
From television to cinema, from the study of digital platforms to social networks, without neglecting the fluid formats that today characterize seriality in audiovisuals, and podcasts, the proposals for this issue seek to form a heterogeneity of objects of study and disciplinary perspectives. The aim is to highlight the multiplicity of investigation ways opened up by Media Studies.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of topics of interest for this issue:

• How does the structural approach contribute to media studies today? Through the analysis of texts, interfaces, data, and practices, what theoretical spaces open up for the traditional semiotic perspective?


• The disruption of traditional formats generated by streaming and digital Convergence has given rise to media objects that exceed the boundaries of their definitions. How should we approach the distinction between individual and serial texts today? Do we need new models, or are the existing ones still valid?


• Today, media practices have changed radically due to the now consolidated presence of digital realities, whether more institutional or open to user contributions. How are sociological and ethnographic perspectives addressing these changes?


• The breakdown of international distribution boundaries through now global commercial actors has in recent years led to discussions of the “glocalization” of content, between global and local, also because of EU regulations. What effects are generated across streaming and similar interfaces in different territories? How does this reflect the variably national identity of a commercial context?


• With the disappearance of an “institutionalized” and clearly recognizable form of cultural critics, discourse on the values of media products has multiplied and dispersed across different channels. How can we identify the discursivity that emerges from media texts, and what forms of interpretation can be brought into play?


• How can we interpret the role of automation — from recommendation systems to forms of generative artificial intelligence, including social algorithms — in understanding the functioning and effectiveness of the media landscape?

Both theoretical contributions and those focused on case studies will be considered, provided that they clearly highlight an approach or methodology.

A reference bibliography will be provided:
Aggarwal, C.C. (2016), Recommender Systems, Springer International Publishing, Cham.
Avezzù, G. (2018), “The Data Don’t Speak for Themselves: The Humanity of VOD Recommender Systems”, in Baschiera, S., Di Chiara, F. e Re, V. (eds.), Re-intermediation: distribution, online access, and gatekeeping in the digital European market, Mimesis, Milano, pp. 51-66.
Barra, L. (2022), La programmazione televisiva. Palinsesto e on demand, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
Bettetini, G. (1991), La simulazione visiva. Inganno, finzione, poesia, computer graphics, Bompiani, Milano.
Brembilla, P. (2023), Franchise mediali: industrie, narrazioni, pubblici, Pàtron, Bologna.
Caldwell, J.T. (2008), Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television, Duke University Pr, Durham.
Casetti, F. (2023), Schermare le paure. I media tra proiezione e protezione, Bompiani, Milano.
Coviello, M. e Re, V. (2020), “‘Continua a guardare’. Strategie enunciative nelle piattaforme di video on demand”, in «E/C», n. 30, pp. 176-189.
Cucco, M. e Di Chiara, F. (eds.) (2019), I “media industry studies” in Italia: nuove prospettive sul passato e sul presente dell’industria cine-televisiva italiana, «Schermi. Storie e culture del cinema e dei media in Italia», n. 5.
Crawford, K. (2021), Atlas of AI. Power, Politics and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence, Yale University Press, Yale.
Dusi, N. (2015), Contromisure: trasposizioni e intermedialità, Mimesis, Milano.
Eichhron, K. (2022), Content, The MIT Press, Cambridge.
Eugeni, R. (2010), Semiotica dei media. Le forme dell’esperienza, Carocci, Roma.
Eugeni, R. (2015), La condizione postmediale: media, linguaggi e narrazioni, La Scuola, Brescia.
Floridi, L. (2022), Etica dell’intelligenza artificiale, Raffaello Cortina, Milano.
Frey, M. (2021), Netflix recommends: algorithms, film choice, and the history of taste, University of California Press, Oakland.
Galofaro, F. (2022), “La semiotica italiana del cinema e dell’audiovisivo”, in Marrone, G. e Migliore, T. (eds.), Cura del senso e critica sociale. Ricognizione della semiotica italiana, Mimesis, Milano-Udine, pp. 195-224.
Gomez-Uribe, C. e Hunt, N. (2015), “The Netflix Recommender System: Algorithms, Business Value, and Innovation”, in «ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems», vol. 6, n. 4, pp. 1-19.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2018), The Cultural Industries (4th Ed), Sage, Thousand Oaks.
Hill, A. (2018), Media Experiences. Engaging with Drama and Reality Television, Routledge, London.
Jenkins, H. (2006), Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide, New York University Press, New York, NY.
Lobato, R. (2019), Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution, New York University Press, New York, NY.
Lotz, A.D. (2017), Portals: a treatise on internet-distributed television, Maize Books, Ann Arbor.
Lotz, A.D. e Lobato, R. (eds.) (2023), Streaming Video: Storytelling Across Borders, New York University Press, New York, NY.
McDonald, P., Brannon Donoghue, C. e Havens T. (eds.) (2021), Digital media distribution: portals, platforms, pipelines, New York University Press, New York, NY.
Montani, P., Cecchi, D. e Feyles, M. (eds.) (2018), Ambienti mediali, Meltemi, Milano.
Newman, M.Z. (2022), The Media Studies Toolkit, Routledge, New York.
Noam, E. (2021), The Content, Impact, and Regulation of Streaming Video. The Next Generation of Media Emerges, Edward Elgard Publishing, Cheltenham.
Pescatore, G. (ed.) (2018), Ecosistemi narrativi: dal fumetto alle serie tv, Carocci, Roma.
Poell, T., Nieborg, D.B. e Duffy, B.E. (2021), Platforms and Cultural Production, Polity, Cambridge.
Rai Ufficio Studi (ed.) (2022), Ecosistema Audio-suono. Dalla radio all’audio di servizio pubblico, Rai Libri, Roma.
Re, V. (2022), “Netflix all’italiana: The Netflix Experience as Narrated by Italian Users”, in «The Italianist», vol. 42, n. 2, pp. 289-302.
Scaglioni, M. e Sfardini, A. (eds.) (2025), La televisione. Dal broadcasting allo streaming, Carocci, Roma.
Star, S.L. (1999), “The Ethnography of Infrastructure”, in «American Behavioral Scientist», vol. 43, n. 3, pp. 377-391.
Tryon, C. (2013), On-Demand Culture: Digital Delivery and the Future of Movies, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.
Villani, N. (2023), “Paesaggi dell’incontro mediale on-demand”, in «Umanistica Digitale», n. 15, pp. 47–63.
Villani, N. (2023), “Spazi dell’on-demand. Le pratiche streaming tra ambienti e paesaggi mediali”, in «H-ermes. Journal of Communication», n. 24, pp. 149-164.
Villani, N. (2025), Per un’Etnosemiotica dei media? L’approccio generativo e i Media Studies, Esculapio, Bologna.
Vonderau, P. (2015), “The Politics of Content Aggregation”, in «Television & New Media», vol. 16, n. 8, pp. 717-733.
Vonderau, P. (2019), “The Spotify Effect: Digital Distribution and Financial Growth”, in «Television & New Media» vol. 20, n. 1, pp. 3-19.
Wayne, L.M. (2018), “Netflix, Amazon, and branded television content in subscription video on-demand portals”, in «Media, Culture & Society», vol. 40, n. 5, pp. 725-741.
Wolff, M. (2015), Television Is the New Television. The Unexpected Triumph of Old Media in the Digital Age, Penguin, New York.

Deadlines
Abstract submission: 9 December 2025
Abstract acceptance: 8 January 2026
Article delivery: 13 April 2026
Return of opinions after double blind review: 15 June 2026
Delivery of revised articles: 17 August 2026
Publication: 12 October 2026

The abstract should be sent jointly to the three editors:
Francesco Galofaro: francesco.galofaro@iulm.it
Nicolò Villani: nv.nico.villani@gmail.com
Carlo Alberto Bondi: carloalberto.bondi@unipa.it

Informations:

• The abstract must be approximately 160 words and must be submitted in both Italian and English. Accepted languages: Italian, English, French.


• The acceptance of the articles and their publication is subject to double blind peer review. – There are no official limits of length to the articles, yet we recommend 40.000 characters as a reasonable maximum measure (including spaces, notes and references).


• Files format accepted are .doc, docx, .odt.


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• The Authors must send their contribution in two versions: one in anonymous form, to be sent to the reviewers, and the other containing name, position, email, website, biographic notes (100 words). Each version must be a separate file.


• In the anonymous file, in any reference to the Author's publications the name must be cancelled and replaced by "Author" and the titles by "Title of the publication". The date must be let visible.


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The editorial team would like to thank you for your kind attention.