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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Summer School on Media in Political Participation and Mobilization

COSMOS and the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore invite applications for the upcoming Summer School on “Media in Political Participation and Mobilization” which will be held in Florence (Italy) in June 2017, from Monday 26th to Friday 30th included.

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The Summer School will explore the complex relationship between media and diverse instances of political participation and mobilization. More in particular, the lectures during the Summer School will revolve around three main themes on which literature flourished in the past few years, providing new perspectives on the relationship between media and political participation/mobilizations: (1) media cultures; (2) media materialities; and (3) media practices.

Participants (up to 15) will be given the possibility to present their ongoing research and project activities during afternoon sessions. Other participants and speakers will provide feedback and suggestions. Participants will also have the possibility to schedule a meeting with the Summer School invited lecturers to discuss more in details their work and receive targeted advices.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AND ACADEMIC PROGRAMME

The Summer School will include two keynote speeches on media and political participation and mobilization. Confirmed keynote speakers are: Prof. Donatella della Porta (Scuola Normale Superiore); Prof. Nick Couldry (London School of Economics). This is the preliminary academic programme, that includes a detailed overview of the summer school, confirmed instructors and lectures topics.

DATES AND LOCATION

The Summer School will last 5 teaching, from the 26th to the 30th of June 2017. The Summer School will take place at the Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Scuola Normale Superiore, in Florence, Italy.

APPLICATION

The Summer School is open to 15 graduate and master students as well as early career researchers with a specialized interest in media in political participation and mobilization in different fields of study, including political science, political sociology, political communication, and political anthropology from throughout European and beyond.

Applicants must email a cover letter in which they explain how the Summer School would be beneficial for their research, a 500-word abstract of their proposed paper, and an updated curriculum vitae no later than 17th of March 2017 to media_summerschool@sns.it

Applicants will be informed of the outcome by email as soon as possible and no later than 7 April 2017. Selected applicants shall confirm their participation and pay the enrollment fee within 15 days, after which places may be offered to applicants on the reserve list.

REQUIREMENTS

Students will be required to write and submit a 5.000-6.000 words paper before the starting of the Summer School. The paper will be then presented and discussed during one of the afternoon sessions. Students will be also required to complete the mandatory readings for morning lectures and to actively participate in discussion during morning and afternoon sessions.

Successful participation in the Summer School will be accredited a certificate of participation.

English will be the working language of the Summer School. Therefore students are expected to have a good command of written and spoken English.

ENROLLMENT FEES

Full fees for the Summer School are €350 and cover tuition costs, academic materials, lunches, welcome aperitivo & farewell dinner, use of library, computing and internet facilities.

Fees will not cover travel and accommodation costs.

Details of how to pay the fees and book the room will be emailed to all selected participants. Once paid, fees are not reimbursable.

AUDITORS

PhD students enrolled at the Scuola Normale Superiore can participate as auditors in the Summer School with no need to pay any enrollment fees.

A limited number of PhD students based in other academic institutions might be admitted as auditors in the Summer School paying a reduced fee of €250 that will cover academic materials, lunches, welcome aperitivo & farewell dinner, use of library, computing and internet facilities.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Director: Donatella della Porta

Co-director: Alice Mattoni

Scientific Committee: Diego Ceccobelli, Marco Deseriis, Lorenzo Mosca, Elena Pavan, Andrea Pitrioni, Emiliano Treré, Lorenzo Zamponi

CONTACTS

Email contact for application, questions and clarifications about the Summer School: media_summerschool@sns.it

FINANCIAL AND LOGISTIC SUPPORT

The Summer School is kindly supported by:

  • European Consortium for Political Research – ECPR and its Standing Group on Political Participation and Mobilization
  • Istituto di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Scuola Normale Superiore;
  • Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) at the Scuola Normale Superiore;
  • PiCME – Political Participation in Complex Media Environments, a research project funded by the SIR grant 2014 of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.

News

22/02/2023

15 fully funded PhD positions

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The Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy is pleased to announce 15 PhD fellowships beginning on November 1, 2023. The deadline for applications is April 13, 2023.

16/02/2023

Applications now open! Fourth Edition of the ECPR-COSMOS Summer School on Methods for the Study of Political Participation and Mobilisation

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Applicants must send their application materials no later than March the 17th 2023.

10/01/2022

SNS announces 14 fully-funded PhD positions

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The Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, Italy is pleased to announce 14 PhD fellowships beginning on November 1, 2022.

16/07/2021

Prof. della Porta to lead VolkswagenStiftung-funded ECSEuro project

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Reflecting the European challenge of transnational cooperation and multiple crises, this project asks how local political initiatives across Europe enact citizenship and solidarity and contribute to the vision of a more democratic Europe from below.

09/07/2021

SNS announces 7 fully-funded PhD positions

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The Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore announces 7 fully-funded PhD positions. Deadline for applications: 21 August 2021.

28/09/2020

Four post-doctoral research positions on the pandemic

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The Scuola Normale Superiore announces four post-doctoral positions to be activated as part of the research project “After the coronavirus pandemic: The effects of the health emergency on society and knowledge.” 

Publications

Journal Article - 2023

Reflective Inclusion: Learning from Activists What Taking a Deliberative Stance Means.

Andrea Felicetti, Markus Holdo
We propose to adopt a principle we call “reflective inclusion,” which allows us to engage abductively with new actions that might expand and deepen our understanding of what deliberation may look like.

Monograph - 2022

Resisting the Backlash: Street Protest in Italy

Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos & Lorenzo Zamponi
Drawing interview material, together with extensive data from the authors’ original social movement database, this book examines the development of social movements in resistance to perceived political "regression" and a growing right-wing backlash.

Journal Article - 2022

Populists in power and conspiracy theories

Andrea Pirro & Paul Taggart
Looking at three cases of populists in government – Orbán in Hungary, Trump in the United States, and Chávez in Venezuela – we examine the definition of conspiring elites (who), the circumstances under which conspiracy theories are propagated (when), and the ultimate purpose of conspiratorial framing (why).

Journal Article - 2022

The mobilization for spatial justice in divided societies. Urban commons, trust reconstruction and socialist memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Chiara Milan
The article contributes to the urban studies literature and the study of social movements in divided societies by disclosing the distinctive features and mobilizing potential that the notion of urban commons retains in a war-torn society with a socialist legacy.

Journal Article - 2022

(Water) Bottles and (Street) Barricades: The Politicisation of Lifestyle-Centred Action in Youth Climate Strike Participation

Lorenzo Zamponi, Anja Corinne Baukloh, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Donatella della Porta, Martín Portos
This article explores the forms of action adopted by participants in two Fridays For Future (FFF) strikes, focusing on the repertoires of action of (young) climate justice protesters. Drawing on protest survey data, it shows demonstrated that young protesters do not participate less in claim-based action than older cohorts. Furthermore, a process of politicisation can be seen to be unfolding that leads to increased commitment in both lifestyle and political forms of participation – at least among active milieus.

Journal Article - 2022

Performing (during) the Coronavirus crisis: The Italian populist radical right between national opposition and subnational government

Andrea Pirro
The first year of COVID-19 confirmed the standing of the populist radical right in Italy. While sitting in opposition at the national level, Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy and Matteo Salvini's League shared common criticism of the Conte II government but experienced diverging trajectories in terms of popularity. These changes can be partly attributed to the different agency of their leaderships. Overall and collectively considered, the Italian populist radical right broke even during the first year of COVID-19, but the crisis exposed the first cracks in Salvini's leadership.

Journal Article - 2021

Far-right protest mobilisation in Europe: Grievances, opportunities and resources

Pietro Castelli Gattinara, Caterina Froio & Andrea Pirro
In this article, we bridge previous research on the far right and social movements to advance hypotheses on the drivers of far-right protest mobilisation based on grievances, opportunities and resource mobilisation models. We use an original dataset combining novel data on 4,845 far-right protest events in 11 East and West European countries (2008–2018), with existing measures accounting for the (political, economic and cultural) context of mobilisation.

Monograph - 2021

Migrant Protest. Interactive Dynamics in Precarious Mobilizations

Elias Steinhilper
This book explores the interactions and spaces shaping the emergence, trajectory, and fragmentation of migrant protest in unfavorable contexts of marginalization.

Edited Volume - 2021

Contentious Migrant Solidarity. Shrinking Spaces and Civil Society Contestation

Donatella della Porta & Elias Steinhilper
Building upon social movement and migration studies, this book maps the two sides of ‘contentious solidarity’: a shrinking civic space and its contestation by civil society.

Journal Article - 2021

Learning from Democratic Practices: New Perspectives in Institutional Design

Andrea Felicetti
Drawing from literature on democratic practices in social movements and democratic innovations, the article illustrates three ways to advance institutional design in the wake of the systemic turn.