EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
The course aims to provide an accurate picture of the European institutional and communicative system by analyzing its potential and critical issues from its historical roots and investigating its functioning in the broader context of globalization. In particular, teaching will focus on the characteristics of the European public sphere as well as on the complexity and variety of actors and factors that have and continue to contribute to the functioning of the European institutional and communicative sector.

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to
- Know European dynamics and international political and social relations
- Frame current European and global issues in the proper institutional context and interpret their historical roots
- Access and manage the institutional documentation of European institutions, especially retrieve objective information from the web
- Act in the European communicative context with the appropriate cognitive skills
- Recognize the peculiarities of the European public sphere
- Deal adequately with the field of globalized communication

PREREQUISITES
The student, in order to follow the course adequately, must possess the conceptual and cognitive background acquired over the three-year bachelor degree curriculum, particularly in the areas of linguistics, history and communication.

The course is divided into two parts
1) Institutional part: this part of the course will analyze the process of European integration by contextualizing it in the global historical process, with a focus on the development of the idea of federal Europe. The complexity of the causes that contributed to the process of European construction will then be highlighted, contemplating the creation of new statehoods, with attention to the involvement of civil society and the intricate phenomenology of its economic, political, social and cultural behaviour.
2) Specialized part: this part of the teaching will describe and motivate the specificities of communication in the framework of the European Union, its innovative potentials as well as in its criticalities, in correlation with the peculiarities of the European institutional structure, halfway between federation and confederation, and its effects on public space. After an introduction on the EU's institutional system, functioning and policies, the teaching will analyze, also browsing the institutional webliography and information channels of and about the Union, the EU's communication policy, dwelling on its purposes of institutionalization and legitimization in the context of the construction of a public sphere and a European identity. The analysis will be complemented by reconstructing the stages of European institutional information and communication policy in the context of the history of EU integration, with an excursus on the journals advocating for European unity edited in its early stages. Finally, the course will address the issue of EU representation in the media and press, illustrated also through case studies.

TEACHING METHODS
The educational objectives of the course will be achieved through frontal lectures conducted by the teacher through supporting materials (ppt slides, illustrative examples, institutional documentation, archival sources and bibliographic material), documentary research on the web, critical analysis of institutional and journalistic texts. Guided exercises on the use of internet sources and their correct interpretation are planned. Given the way the course is delivered, class attendance is strongly recommended. Non-attending students will be provided with additional bibliographic materials.

LEARNING ASSESSMENT
The verification of learning will be conducted through a single oral examination. Assessment of the level of learning of the knowledge and skills provided by the course will contribute to the final grade, based on the following criteria:
- knowledge of the subject matter
-