European / International Joint Ph.D. in
Social Representation and Communication

Social Representations and Environment

  • IX.1. Place identity and social representations of “historical capital cities” in residents, first-visitors, past- and potential future visitors; collective memory, representations, images, metaphors, evaluations, emotions attached to symbolic places and urban territories. Social Representations and Cultural Sociology: Urban memory and identity. Urban studies and diversity in the cities of Central Europe, migration and ethnic identity studies, Social Psychology of tourism and marketing: Sapienza University of Rome – Italy; Masaryk University, Brno - Czech Republic; Matej Bel University – Slovakia; University of Nankai – China; Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Mexico; CUNY, New York - USA
  • IX.2. Exploring and Representing the Digital and Physical Environment: city-branding, marketing strategies via traditional and new media and social representations from different actors’ perspective (residents, first-visitors, past and potential future visitors); Social Representations, tourism and city-marketing and city-reputation: choice of the target tourism cities and the role of institutional and commercial communication (official city web sites, their websites dedicated to tourisms, institutional and commercial logos, institutional and commercial brochures..) and of the informal communication (conversation among members of social networks and social representations and the “lived” or “imagined” experiences of the target cities and their places as first visitors (past-visitors) or potential ones (future first-visitors); preferred itineraries through  virtual tours made by Google Earth; the impact of ICTs on the daily mobility of persons (multimodal information and sharing systems): meanings of places evoked in specific contexts by analysis of geo-localised communications (e.g. twitter characterised by place-related ashtags); tracing practices of exploration with places enacted by groups of individuals (e.g. locals and tourists) by mobile-apps: Sapienza University of Rome – Italy; IFSTTAR – France
  • IX.3. Mapping city structure and itineraries “above” and “under” their surface in relation to the mobility practices and the multimodal-choices of the private and public transportation systems in different social groups. Analysis of drivers’ behaviour and public or private transportation systems in metropolitan, urban and rural contexts. Social representations and preferred mobility practices by different citizens (residents, tourists, private and public transport drivers). The impact of car use on the public health in the urban environment and its relevance in the bioethical context: IFSTTAR – France; Sapienza University– Italy; University “A.I. Cuza” Iasi – Romania; University of Valencia – Spain;
  • IX.4. Polemical social representations and hot controversial environmental issues (like debates among central and local authorities and communities about installation or conversion of nuclear power plants; use of alternative forms of energies; conversion of archaeological industrial sites; use of territory for rubbish recycling, for high speed train transportation systems, etc.); social representations, ideologies, group belonging and frames dynamics in environmental and socio-economic conflicts; polemical representations, environmental awareness, personal involvement,  agentic dispositions and environmental bio-ethics: Sapienza University of Rome – Italy; University “A.I. Cuza” Iasi – Romania; University of Nankai – China
  • IX.5. Natural and Built Environment, People and sustainability: ecology, place-attachment, socio-normative dimensions and group belonging: the landscape as resource: between storage and new entrepreneurial activities; social construction processes in environmental conflicts, between participation and eco-citizenship; analysis of the determinants of sustainable urban and extra-urban mobility; from uniformity to sustainable diversity in transformations of post-socialist cities; social preferences and policies for sustainable forms of tourism; household waste management; urban green and social practices in the transaction with natural and built urban environment; renewable resources and socio-psychological dimensions leading sustainable consumptions; new energy strategic actions to involve citizens in pro sustainable energy practices in urban contexts; children and adults ecological behaviours and methods of evaluation of efficacy of environmental education interventions: Sapienza University of Rome – Italy; University “A.I. Cuza” Iasi – Romania; University of Nankai – China; Matej Bel University – Slovakia