Organisation of the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society

Prof Matthew Hibberd is Professor of Media Management, Media Economics and Media and Cultural Industries at Università Svizzera italiana (USI), Lugano, Switzerland. From 2011 to 2016 he was Head of the Communications, Media and Culture and Professor of Communications, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK. He was a Professor at the Libera Università Internazionale per gli Studi Sociali (LUISS), Rome, from 2008-2015 and also held the same position at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome from 2005-2013. He is a Fellow of the UK College of Teachers (FCollT) and the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). Professor Hibberd has been Principal Investigator on a number of internationally-funded teaching and research projects. He directed a Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland-funded project examining crisis communications and natural disasters focussing on South-East Asia (Vietnam and India). Matthew was Principal Investigator (PI) on the UK and India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI)-funded Research Collaboration Award programme investigating climate change communications in India and the UK, run in cooperation with the Centre of Media Studies (CMS), Delhi (2010-2013). He was also the PI on another UKIERI-funded project examining journalist training and education and capacity building in India (2013-2015). Professor Hibberd has previous experience of writing reports including the UK government research review in to video games and violence initiated by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Scottish Parliament Communications Audit. He also took part in academic panel meetings as part of the UK Government-funded Byron Review on Children and New Technology. Professor Hibberd is a Consortium Member of European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action-funded ‘Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies’ (2011-2014). Matthew Hibberd is the past recipient of international funds from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), British Academy, Fondazione per la Sussidiarietà, and has worked on Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) and Scottish Government-funded projects. He has detailed knowledge of the research methods and tools planned in this proposal: surveys, interviews, focus groups, direct observation. He published his findings on peer-review journals like Screen (2001), Media, Culture & Society (2001), Convergence (2003), and the International Journal of Media and Cultural Policy (2013), and within edited books (see list of publications). Since September 2024, he is Dean of the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society.

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Jolanta Drzewiecka (PhD, Arizona State University, USA) researches discursive constructions of cultural, racial, and national differences and identities to advance a critical intercultural communication framework. She focuses on two areas: immigrant identity and public memories. In the first, she examines migrant identities, processes of integration and immigrant discourses. Here, she explores how relations of inequality shape and are shaped by practices and social relations, including affective practices, and their implications for understanding 'integration.' The latter area explores how public memories are shaped by and shape national discourses. She is particularly interested in how memories of ethnic violence are discursively disabled and blocked and victims rendered unrecognisable to protect fictions of the national self. Here, she combines discourse and rhetorical analyses with psychoanalytic theories. She has published her research in journals such Communication Theory, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Media Studies in Communication, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. She is the Principal Investigator of the SNSF project "Relational integration in place: affect and power in everyday practices." Prof. Drzewiecka moved to Switzerland after teaching and conducting research at Washington State University, USA. Jolanta Drzewiecka is Associate Dean and Study Delegate of the USI Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society.

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Lorenzo Cantoni graduated in Philosophy and holds a PhD in Education and Linguistics. He is full professor at USI - Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland), Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, where he is director of the Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication. His research interests are where communication, education and new media overlap, ranging from computer mediated communication to usability, from eLearning to eTourism and digital Fashion, from ICT4D to eGovernment. He is chair-holder of the UNESCO chair in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in World Heritage Sites, established at USI in 2013, and board member of WHES - World Heritage Experience Switzerland. He is director of the Master in Digital Fashion Communication, done in collaboration with the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and director of the Master in International Tourism. L. Cantoni has been Dean of the Faculty (2010-2014), USI's Pro-rector for Education and Students' experience (2018-2023), Deputy (acting) Rector (May 2022-June 2023) and President of IFITT - International Federation for IT in Travel and Tourism (2014-January 2018).

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