Papers by Sergio Minniti
"Vade retro, gamer!" La riappropriazione creativa del videogioco arcade in Italia
Studi culturali, 2024
The paper addresses the development of "retromedia practices" (Magaudda and Minniti 2019) by anal... more The paper addresses the development of "retromedia practices" (Magaudda and Minniti 2019) by analysing the reappropriation of arcade video games after their decline in the mid-1990s, focusing on the Italian context. In doing so, it adopts the "creative appropriation of technology" perspective (Eglash 2004) and elaborates the notion of "creative reappropriation" to highlight the innovative character of the practices developed by users around obsolete technologies. Drawing on qualitative data and analysis, the paper identifies three main moments and forms of creative reappropriation: 1) a first phase characterised by the reappropriation of the arcade at the software level, through the emulation of past video games on new platforms; 2) a second phase characterised by the reappropriation of the material dimension associated with the arcade cabinet; 3) a third phase characterised by the reappropriation of the context of use and the forms of sociality associated with it. In analysing these different phases, the paper underlines the crucial role of a specific media generation whose cultural memory has driven the reinterpretation and reappropriation of arcade video games, acting as a connecting force between the past and the present.
Data practices as entry points for understanding the mobilisation of non-experts in environmental monitoring
Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 2024
The paper investigates the complex relationship between contentious politics and the production o... more The paper investigates the complex relationship between contentious politics and the production of scientific knowledge, particularly in the realm of environmental monitoring data practices. Our analysis focuses on the role of non-experts in the production of environmental data outside environmental public authorities or on the periphery of environmental governance structures. Drawing on existing literature that positions environmental governance as a critical area for understanding the entanglement of scientific knowledge, innovation, and political power, the analysis engages with three case studies – Public Lab, RMAP, and Safecast. Each case highlights different aspects of data practices related to environmental monitoring and foregrounds a distinct phase of the process: data collection, data validation, and data accessibility. These initiatives challenge existing power asymmetries and illustrate how citizen participation can reshape the political dynamics of environmental governance. Using frameworks from Science and Technology Studies (STS), the paper sheds light on how data practices mediate issues of transparency, authority, and legitimacy in environmental science. Ultimately, it calls for further investigation into these practices to better understand their role in shaping power relationships and knowledge production in contentious political contexts.
Science as culture, Feb 14, 2024
The process of developing of a participatory environmental
monitoring network in Italy, unfolded... more The process of developing of a participatory environmental
monitoring network in Italy, unfolded between 2013 and
2020, is analysed in order to explore the dynamics of
knowledge co-production involving collaboration between
scientists and non-experts, in the present case constituted
by a community of weather amateurs and practitioners.
Based on a qualitative approach and 15 in-depth interviews
with different stakeholders involved in the early
development of the pilot network, the analysis focuses on
the dynamics of collaboration between the actors involved
that led to the creation of the Italian participatory
environmental monitoring platform. For the analysis, we
adopt the theoretical model of ‘translation’ proposed by
Michel Callon (1984), which focuses on the dynamics of the
emergence of a network of collaboration between
scientists and other heterogeneous actors. In particular, we
focus on the notion of ‘obligatory passage point’ (OPP)
along the translation process. Focusing on the process of
translation and the dynamics that characterise the
convergence towards a common OPP in the processes of
network constitution and knowledge production highlights
some crucial dynamics that support the unfolding of
effective forms of participatory co-production, including:
the understanding of how the roles and identities of
different actors are recognised, transformed, productively
aligned and consolidated; the performative power of
participatory processes that are able to redefine and
transform the pre-existing identities and roles of actors;
and the outcome of the epistemic inclusion of practices
and knowledge of less powerful actors within institutional,
political and scientific frameworks.
Comunicazioni Sociali, 2021
Since its beginnings in the 1990s, media archeology has established a fruitful exchange of concep... more Since its beginnings in the 1990s, media archeology has established a fruitful exchange of concepts and methods with media art. The present article focuses on the mutual exchange between these two fields. It aims at reflecting on the commonalities and differences between artists’ and scholars’ work and, consequently, on the emergence of the figure of the artist-researcher, or researcher- artist, who practices media history through creative techniques. To do so, it first reconstructs how media archaeology and media art have cross-fertilized each other, and identifies two distinct phases of convergence between media-archaeological research and art. Then, by drawing on the relevant literature on the subject, the article examines the main strategies and methods adopted by archaeologically-oriented artists, highlighting how such methods have become increasingly relevant to media archaeologists and, more broadly, to media historians.
VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture, 2019
The article addresses the issue of the digital divide in Ecuador and illustrates how artefacts fr... more The article addresses the issue of the digital divide in Ecuador and illustrates how artefacts from television material heritage might be transformed into digital libraries to provide marginalized communities with access to digital information. It describes an ongoing socio-technical project which aims at providing Ecuadorian rural communities with access to digital information through the re-functioning of analogue TV sets and other complementary technologies that will become obsolete due to Ecuador's switch from an analogue to digital broadcasting signal. On one hand, the project is discussed with reference to the contemporary debate in the fields of Media and Television Studies on the obsolescence and renewal of technology; And on the other, it is discussed on the background of earlier projects focusing on the design of digital libraries to circulate information and improve digital literacy in rural contexts. Finally, the prototype created is discussed from a technical and conceptual point of view.
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2019
The article aims at investigating the persistence and comeback of old media technologies (phenome... more The article aims at investigating the persistence and comeback of old media technologies (phenomena we define, in short, ‘retromedia’) by developing a distinctive theoretical approach named retromedia-in-practice and based on practice theory. Far from being abandoned and forgotten, many old media devices and artefacts (such as vinyl records, cassette tapes, analogue photographic cameras, early videogames and brick mobile phones, to mention just a few notable examples) are nowadays readopted by young generations and niche media subcultures. However, most of the existing literature focusing on these cases has limits and shortfalls, resulting in a partial and misleading understanding of these phenomena: scholars and theorists often put at the centre the cultural fascination for vintage objects and the nostalgia effect; other studies rely on a taken-for-granted distinction between old and new media; the relational and processual nature of media change is rarely addressed; and in general, research lacks a framework capable of adequately integrating symbolic processes with material and technological features. In order to cope with these shortfalls, the article adopts the approach of practice theory, which enables to focus not on the media themselves, but on the practices associated with them. After presenting the distinctive framework of analysis, we exemplify our approach by analysing three different cases coming from music (vinyl records), photography (Polaroid-like instant photography) and videogaming (the ‘consolization’ of old arcade games). These case studies rely on original empirical data coming from authors’ qualitative research. The article concludes by arguing that a shift from considering retromedia as objects or discourses to retromedia-in-practice allows to both address the processual nature of retromedia and propose an interpretation that keeps together media materiality, their meanings and also the embodied activities and behaviours that are attached to them.
Cinéma & Cie: International Film Studies Journal, 2018
Scientometrics, 2018
Open Access (OA) initiatives and knowledge infrastructure represent vital elements for both produ... more Open Access (OA) initiatives and knowledge infrastructure represent vital elements for both producing significant changes in scholarly communication and reducing limitations of access to the circulation of scientific knowledge in developing countries. The spreading of the OA movement in Latin America and Caribbean (LA&C) countries, exemplified by the growth of regional and national initiatives, such as the creation of OA digital journal libraries and the establishment of supportive governmental policies, provides evidence of the significant role OA is playing in improving the participation of LA&C countries in the so-called "global knowledge commons". In this paper, we map OA publications in LA&C countries through a bibliometric analysis of OA publications indexed by the Web of Science Core Collection and SciELO Citation Index during the period 2005-2017. Searches were done in the fields "Country", "Publication Year", "Language", and "Research Area" using WoS analytical tools, in order to map the evolution, distribution , and characteristics of OA publications in the LA&C region. The analysis is conducted on both the sub-regional and national levels. On the sub-regional level, trends in the four LA&C sub-regions (Southern Cone, Central America and Mexico, Andes, and the Caribbean) are identified and compared. On the national level, the analysis identifies as most representative and focuses on nine countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. By doing so, it enriches the existing literature on the subject, where the prominent role played by some of these countries in supporting OA has been already underlined.
TECNOSCIENZA: Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, 2018
Relationships among theory, gaming, learning and socio-technical design are explored in the two c... more Relationships among theory, gaming, learning and socio-technical design are explored in the two contributions which compose the section. The theory in question is ANT, re-interpreted through critical making-an umbrella term for various distinctive practices that link traditional scholarship in the humanities and social sciences to forms of material engagement. Sergio Minniti describes an ongoing project called Game of ANT, which draws upon the critical making approach to design an interactive technology and a workshop experience through which scholars and students can conceptually-materially engage with ANT, hence exploring and approaching it from novel points of view. Game of ANT adopts the Latourian vision of technoscience as war and physically embodies this idea by proposing a sort of war game during which participants play the roles of human or non-human actors engaging with the competitive dynamics of socio-technical life. The commentary by Stefano De Paoli proposes new directions to develop the project, by deepening the concept of game and its value for design and learning processes.
The article focuses on the reconfiguration of analogue instant photography (Polaroid-like) in the... more The article focuses on the reconfiguration of analogue instant photography (Polaroid-like) in the digital age. Drawing on STS literature on the mutual shaping of users and technology, and on anthropology and the history of photography, it adopts the concept of " photo-object " to discuss how the digitalization of photography stimulated a change in the cultural significance of materiality in the context of aspirational amateur photography , thus showing how this triggered a redefinition of instant photography as a more authentic form of aspirational practice. The article is based on empirical data collected during a multi-sited ethnography conducted in Italy between 2014 and 2015. By focusing on Polaroid's " objectness " and its dialectical tension with the immateriality of digital photography, the paper highlights an increasingly common process of circulation between analogue and digital photographic environments and argues that this process of circulation can be conceived in terms of a " remediation " process between analogue and digital practices.
The digitalisation of photography has often been interpreted as a process of dematerialization. H... more The digitalisation of photography has often been interpreted as a process of dematerialization. However, empirical studies show that the material dimension is still fundamental to digital photographic practices. By accepting the argument that digitalisation prompted a reconfiguration of photography's materiality, rather than its disappearance, this article examines a phenomenon that has developed on the periphery of, but relating to, digital photography: the reappropriation of analogue technology in the context of " serious " amateurism. By using data collected during a study on the reappropriation of Polaroid technology, this contribution traces some patterns in the reintegration of materiality within amateur practice, showing how photographers have redefined the role of objects as a reaction to the spread of digital photography.
Chapters by Sergio Minniti
CO-CREAZIONE E RESPONSABILITÀ NELL’INNOVAZIONE TECNOSCIENTIFICA DAL BASSO, 2022
The Camera as Actor: Photography and the Embodiment of Technology, 2021
The chapter analyses the increased readoption of analogue photographic technology by aspirational... more The chapter analyses the increased readoption of analogue photographic technology by aspirational amateurs in the contemporary digital environment. It argues that this phenomenon reflects the processes of co-constitution of the analogue and the digital, through which the infrastructures, discourses and practices of analogue photography have become imbricated with those of digital media, highlighting how practitioners have increasingly interpreted the reappropriation of film photography as a means to counteract the “dematerialization” process supposedly triggered by the spread of digital photography, and to reaffirm the value of photography as a physical and multisensory experience. The chapter reconstructs the origins of this phenomenon and, in so doing, proposes to interpret contemporary analogue photographic practices as examples of “technological resistance” that are guided by a logic of opposition to digital photography. By analyzing two contemporary analogue practices, lomography and polaroidism, the chapter also shows how the articulation of “resistant” photographic cultures and practices has been grounded in the redefinition of the way in which the camera’s and photographer’s agencies are conceived and relationally bound, as well as in the greater saliency attributed to photography’s materiality in the digital age.
Paolo Magaudda and Federico Neresini (eds.) Gli studi sociali sulla scienza e la tecnologia, pp. 109-126, 2020
Il capitolo prende in esame la relazione tra utilizzatori e tecnologie, evidenziando come gli STS... more Il capitolo prende in esame la relazione tra utilizzatori e tecnologie, evidenziando come gli STS abbiano messo in discussione la rigida distinzione tra sfera della produzione e sfera dell’uso per portare in primo piano le dinamiche di co-costruzione che si sviluppano nel corso dell’appropriazione degli oggetti tecnici da parte dei loro utilizzatori. Più in particolare, il capitolo descrive quattro filoni di ricerca attraverso cui gli STS hanno contribuito alla comprensione di queste dinamiche: a) lo studio delle modalità in cui designer e ingegneri configurano gli utilizzatori; b) l’analisi delle forme di innovazione che emergono dall’uso e il ruolo degli utilizzatori come agenti di cambiamento tecnologico; c) lo studio delle forme di resistenza e di non-uso da parte degli utilizzatori; e infine d) le ricerche sul ruolo degli utilizzatori nella manutenzione e riparazione degli oggetti tecnici.
Books by Sergio Minniti
I media digitali sono spesso descritti come il futuro obbligato, il cui successo è dato per scont... more I media digitali sono spesso descritti come il futuro obbligato, il cui successo è dato per scontato. Ma c’è un altro lato della digitalizzazione che viene poco considerato e che una puntuale analisi storica aiuta a mostrare: anche le tecnologie digitali a volte non funzionano o vengono abbandonate dagli utenti, i processi d’innovazione che sembrano inevitabili s’interrompono, alcuni mezzi che saranno nelle case di tutti domani diventano presto obsoleti. In poche parole i media digitali possono fallire. Questo è il tema di Fallimenti digitali, un libro che raccoglie contributi originali dedicati a differenti settori mediali (dalla fotografia alle reti, dalla TV alla radio, dalla stampa alla realtà virtuale, dal cinema ai videogiochi) al fine di esplorare e decostruire la categoria di fallimento nell’universo digitale. Il risultato è un lavoro “archeologico” di riscoperta e scavo nella storia recente di quelli che (spesso in maniera impropria) vengono definiti nuovi media. Un lavoro che favorisce la riemersione di varie storie d’insuccesso poco conosciute, interrotte e sacrificate sull’altare delle retoriche “vincenti” proprie del
tecno-capitalismo digitale, in cui anche il fallimento è propedeutico al successo futuro in piena logica da start up. Adatto a un lettore curioso così come agli studiosi di media e comunicazione, il libro vuole sottolineare come la digitalizzazione non costituisca un percorso scontato e lineare, ma si presenti piuttosto come un processo incerto, molto più traballante e insicuro di quanto siamo comunemente spinti a immaginare.
Fotografía Experimental. Manual De Técnicas Y Procesos Alternativos
Conference Presentations by Sergio Minniti
The presentation addresses the issue of digital divide in Ecuador. It describes an ongoing socio-... more The presentation addresses the issue of digital divide in Ecuador. It describes an ongoing socio-technical project which aims at providing rural communities with access to digital knowledge through the re-functioning of analog TV sets and other complementary technologies that are going to become obsolete on June 2018 due to Ecuador’s switch from analog to digital broadcasting signal. The prototype created is discussed from a technical and conceptual point of view.
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Papers by Sergio Minniti
monitoring network in Italy, unfolded between 2013 and
2020, is analysed in order to explore the dynamics of
knowledge co-production involving collaboration between
scientists and non-experts, in the present case constituted
by a community of weather amateurs and practitioners.
Based on a qualitative approach and 15 in-depth interviews
with different stakeholders involved in the early
development of the pilot network, the analysis focuses on
the dynamics of collaboration between the actors involved
that led to the creation of the Italian participatory
environmental monitoring platform. For the analysis, we
adopt the theoretical model of ‘translation’ proposed by
Michel Callon (1984), which focuses on the dynamics of the
emergence of a network of collaboration between
scientists and other heterogeneous actors. In particular, we
focus on the notion of ‘obligatory passage point’ (OPP)
along the translation process. Focusing on the process of
translation and the dynamics that characterise the
convergence towards a common OPP in the processes of
network constitution and knowledge production highlights
some crucial dynamics that support the unfolding of
effective forms of participatory co-production, including:
the understanding of how the roles and identities of
different actors are recognised, transformed, productively
aligned and consolidated; the performative power of
participatory processes that are able to redefine and
transform the pre-existing identities and roles of actors;
and the outcome of the epistemic inclusion of practices
and knowledge of less powerful actors within institutional,
political and scientific frameworks.
Chapters by Sergio Minniti
Books by Sergio Minniti
tecno-capitalismo digitale, in cui anche il fallimento è propedeutico al successo futuro in piena logica da start up. Adatto a un lettore curioso così come agli studiosi di media e comunicazione, il libro vuole sottolineare come la digitalizzazione non costituisca un percorso scontato e lineare, ma si presenti piuttosto come un processo incerto, molto più traballante e insicuro di quanto siamo comunemente spinti a immaginare.
Conference Presentations by Sergio Minniti