Half Title Page
Mapping the Evolution of Platform Society
Title Page
Mapping the Evolution of Platform Society: Multidisciplinary Insights from Social and Political Sciences
Edited by
Valentina Goglio
University of Turin, Italy
And
Cecilia Biancalana
University of Turin, Italy
United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China
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Emerald Publishing Limited
Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL
First edition 2025
Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Valentina Goglio and Cecilia Biancalana.
Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.
Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.
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ISBN: 978-1-83608-029-9 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-83608-028-2 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-83608-030-5 (Epub)
About the Editors
Valentina Goglio is an Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin (IT). Her research interests are at the intersection between education and the labour market, with a particular focus on the implications of the digital transformation for education and work. She recently published The Diffusion and Social Implications of MOOCs. A Comparative Study of the USA and Europe, Routledge 2022, and Job Insecurity and Life Courses, Bristol University Press, 2024.
Cecilia Biancalana is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Turin. Her research focuses on political ecology, party change, populism and the relationship between the internet and politics.
About the Contributors
Pablo Bautista-Alcaine, PhD in Education, is a Researcher and full-time Professor at the Faculty of Education in Zaragoza. His research specialises in collective intelligence and issues related to digital health and its risks, all linked to primary and secondary education students.
Camilla Borgna, University of Turin, Italy, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society at the University of Turin, Italy. She is also an Affiliate of the Collegio Carlo Alberto and a Fellow of the College for Interdisciplinary Educational Research. Her research lies at the intersection of social stratification, sociology of education and migration.
Giovanni Cellini is an Assistant Professor, Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Italy. He teaches Social Work and Professional Innovation at the Master in Social Politics and Social Services. His main research topics include social work in the welfare system, helping professions between professionalism and managerialism, social work education, innovation in social work and social services, digitalisation in the social work profession. In the international debate on digitisation in social work education, he published: Cellini, G. & Dellavalle, M. (2024). Rethinking Social Work Education in Italy in Light of the Pandemic: An Overview and a Focus on Fieldwork Education. In: Latzer, Y., Shklarski, L. (Eds.), Social Work and Education and the COVID-19 Pandemic (pp. 69–82). Routledge.
Javier Fernández-Albás is the Product Manager of Kampal Data Solutions in charge of the collaborative tool based on Collective Intelligence Kampal Collective Learning. He has participated in the latest developments of this online platform and managed many experiments, both in the field of education and citizen participation.
Enea Fiore is a PhD candidate specialising in comparative politics, with co-supervision at the Laval University in Canada and the University of Geneva in Switzerland. His research investigates the relational dynamics between political parties and social movements. Concurrently, he is involved in a project at the University of Turin, examining online political advertising in EU election campaigns. Fiore's main research interests include political behaviour, electoral campaigns, political parties and social movements. His work aims to deepen the understanding of political interactions and the impact of digital media on electoral processes.
Tatiana Íñiguez-Berrozpe, PhD in Sociology, is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Education in the University of Zaragoza. She is also the Vice-Dean of Information and Communication Technologies in her Faculty. Her research in Sociology of Education focuses on school coexistence, cyber coexistence among adolescents, school inequalities and adult education. She has coordinated European, national and regional research projects and published several articles in high-impact journals on those topics.
Pedro Jerónimo is an Assistant Researcher at LabCom, Department of Communication, Philosophy and Politics at the University of Beira Interior, Portugal. He is a PI of MediaTrust.Lab – Local Media Lab for Civic Trust and Literacy, a member of Observatory of Online Journalism at University of Oporto, the co-chair of IAMCR’ Media Production Analysis WG and an assessor of the European Fact-Checking Standard Network. He was the Founder and Chair of SOPCOM’ Local and Community Media WG and worked as a local Journalist. His research interests primarily focus on local journalism, digital journalism, media production disinformation and media literacy.
Anna Lo Prete is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Torino, Italy. She is also Research Associate at G53 Financial Literacy and Personal Finance Network and Research Fellow at the Centre for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies. Her research interests lie in financial and economic education, public choice, e-government and democracy. Her publications include academic articles in refereed journals, textbooks, contributions to volumes, national newspapers and online information platforms.
Antonio Martella is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society at the University of Turin, Italy. He is a member of the Observatory on Political and Public Communication at the same department and an Associate Researcher at MediaLaB | Big Data in Social and Political Research Lab at the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa. He serves on the board of the Italian Association of Political Communication. His research interests primarily focus on digital journalism and innovation in the production, dissemination and consumption of information through platform analysis, data science and artificial intelligence.
Carlotta Mozzone is a Research Fellow at the Department of Cultures, Politics, and Society at the University of Turin, and a Lecturer in the Bachelor’s program in Social Work at the same university. She is also a doctoral student at Roma Tre University in Sociology and Social Work. Her primary research areas include the history of social work (particularly professionalization, education, and professional supervision), as well as policies and social interventions in migration processes.
Daniela R. Piccio is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. Her research has focused primarily on political parties, gender politics, party and political finance regulation and processes of political representation.
Antonella Seddone is an Associate Professor at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. Her main research interests include political party organisation, party membership, digital environment and social media and political communication.
Luísa Torre is a PhD student in Communication Sciences at the University of Beira Interior (PT) and a member of the Observatory of Online Journalism at University of Oporto. Her research interests are disinformation, news deserts, journalism and power. She has a Master's in Communication Sciences from the University of Oporto (Portugal), and she worked as a Multimedia Journalist for about 10 years in local newsrooms in Brazil.
Acknowledgements
This book is one of the outcomes of the research project The Risks of the Platform Society: Inequality, Discrimination, Manipulation, which has been funded by the University of Turin under the framework of the Call for proposals ‘Grant for Internationalisation – GFI’ for collaborative research projects with international partners. Most of the colleagues participating in the project are part of the UNITA – Universitas Montium network, a European network funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ European Universities initiative programme.
We are grateful to the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin for supporting to the project, including hosting the two international workshops organised in 2023 which are at the origin of this book.
We thank the numerous colleagues who actively contributed by participating in workshops, visiting periods and conferences organized as part of the project.
