Diving into
the web
Integrated Course
Final Synthesis Studio
2017-2018
In the 2017/2018 edition of the Final Synthesis Studio we asked the students to use information visualization both as an analytical and a communicative tool, to observe, understand, shape and communicate complex phenomena. In the second part of the course, the students selected a specific controversy and depicted its current develpment, highlighting the debate related to the issue. They identified the actors relevant to the topic and mapped their positions and connections. Taking cue from the "Digital Methods", the students had to harvest data directly from the web, picking the sources they deemed more appropriate in relation to the debate but also developing new solutions to collect, analyze and represent the data. The result is a "visual atlas" aimed at reporting the debate, representing the actors that take part in it and their stances.
All projects and themes
Inequalities
Automation and AI
Net Neutrality
Automation and AI
Radicalization
Climate change
Migration
Is gender inequality just about work?
Gender inequality is a worldwide phenomenon highly discussed. Our research shows that inequality in the workplace is the most discussed topic related to gender inequality. We decided to see if there are other kinds of gender disparities that are discussed online to reflect the wider picture of the topic. In this website we want to discover how the people perception is influenced by both the online sources of information and how they actively talk about it on social media.
Chiara Dardani, Zara Elmi, Marta Morandi, Sina Ranjbar, Natalia Rosso
How is the public reacting to self driving cars?
While the driverless cars technology is still far from being perfect, countries like the U.S. Have allowed extensive and advanced testing on the roads, sparking debates across news and social media. In the research, we explored structure and sub-topics of the driverless world, tracked how the debate was shaped across newspapers and then proceeded to collect reactions from the public through comment analysis, also taking into account cultural bias and key events that could have had a significant influence on their opinions.
Barbara Bonadies, Giulia Cosentino, Katarina Radovic, Katherin Martinez, Giovan Battista Pesarini, Katarina Radovic
Affected by Neutrality
Some recent events have surfaced the debate on Net Neutrality which takes place on a particular background. Some Government and Telecom companies are trying to overtake the network Neutrality to uphold the costs of development but officially, they are line up to defend the Neutrality of the Web. So, which is their actual position and what is the interest of the people related to the topic?
Maria Ludovica Forziano, Xue He, Yunxing Liu, Chiara Piva, Ginevra Terenghi
UBIquity
Some political institutions and non-governative organizations are responding to the poverty that job replacing may create applying a basic income. What is Universal Basic Income? When was it born and in what conditions? How the issue’s meaning has evolved and what’s its impact on society? Our website tries to answer these questions showing first a historical overview of Universal Basic Income then showing an analysis of the semantical area of UBI to see from what other semantics and issues it is influenced and how. Eventually our focus moved on 4 basic income pilots, different for geographical area and economic situation; we collected data about public opinion on the web and on institutional medias.
Matteo Testa, Matteo Sacchi, Irina Kasatkina, Giorgio Falvo, Nicolas Attolico
Freedom for the thought that we hate
“Hate speech” it’s a hatred expression that is particularly loud on the web today, and is the least traceable form of social hate. Specifically, the term is used to describe expressions intended to despise a person or group on the grounds of race, religion or other reasons of closure and intolerance. Unlike crimes and hate groups, hate speeches fall into a less tangible but no less important form of expression, which is "invisible”, as the few related data available highlight. We therefore here propose to analyze the phenomenon through an empirical path of data collection, in order to define a general picture of hate speech, as well as its implications with freedom of expression.
Silvia Castagna, Maria Girasoli, Davide Modanese, Marianna Piazza, Caterina Scarioni
Do we need Pandora's gift?
The Nuclear Power Debate is a long-running controversy about the risks and benefits of using nuclear reactors to generate electricity for civilian purposes. The United States and China are two very important states in the spread of nuclear power over the past decade. Starting from these two countries, and their controversy on the Nuclear Power topic, we wanted to analyze the different behaviors, and explore if in some way the public opinion of Nuclear Power is different.
Manli Zhu, Simone Casartelli, Xiaoxi Huang, Xuechun Zhao, Yue Qiu
Tales of freedom
While North Korea presents itself as a strong political and nuclear power, a dramatic social problem is constantly growing: the number of defections and the increase of human rights violations. Today, media are interested in Trump and Kim Jong-Un policy. It's hard to find space for a debate about Defectors, partly because North Korea remains one of the most secretive countries in the world. This work aims to show how Western and Chinese media depict defectors and which sentiment drives the debate.
Elena Aversa, Alessandra Bufano, Yi Cui, Xiu Huiting, Francesca Morini, Yidan Sun
