Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

T.J. Thomson @tjthomson.bsky.social · Aug 12

📖 The #RoutledgeCompanionToVisualJournalism is now available for pre-order. It features a whopping 41 chapters over 524 pages and is richly accompanied by all types of visuals from photographs and screenshots to AI-generated images and data visualisations.

🇦🇺🇳🇿🔗: www.booktopia.com.au/the-routledg...

1 4 7

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

Alessandro Gandini @afrontiercity.bsky.social · May 21

We invite applications for the 3rd edition of the Digital Methods for Consumer Studies summer school on the Lake Como (22-26 September).We have 3 fantastic keynotes: Joonas Rokka (Emlyon), @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social (University of Milan) & Gabriele Colombo (Density Design). Deadline June 6. Join us!

camilla volpe @camillavolpe.bsky.social · May 17

applications are open for the DMCS Summer School (Como, Sept 22–26)

great opportunity for anyone working on platforms, AI, media, consumer culture or digital culture

cooked by A. Caliandro, A. Gandini & M. Airoldi

deadline: June 6 – more info: dmcs.lakecomoschool.org

1 2

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · May 18

Through our analysis of this ubiquitous but overlooked visual
form, we advance understanding of what constitutes professionalism within contemporary journalism, in ways that ought to inform research on emerging uses of standardized imagery, specifically visual generative AI, in the news. 5/

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · May 18

Drawing on interviews with the FT, the BBC and Reach, we argue that journalists reinforce their professional authority by imbuing generic visuals with news values, drawing on 21st century notions of their audience to justify the use of generic visuals, and routinizing and standardizing their use. 4/

1 1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · May 18

Because they are produced, distributed and consumed regularly and at speed in today’s news texts, it is
important to investigate whether and how they are shaping and reshaping the profession of journalism. 3/

1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · May 18

Specifically, here we examine the role that generic visuals such as simple data visualizations and stock photos play in professional journalistic practice as an emergent “object of journalism”. 2/

1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · May 18

Here's the latest article from the Generic Visuas in the News project, this time about how media workers from three different UK news organizations use and relate to simple data visualizations and stock photos in journalistic practice. 1/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14648849251342891

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

1 1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · May 8

My paper for the Ethics and Aesthetics of Artificial Images conference is ready and I’m now on my way to Venice for this three-day international gathering: ai-venice2025.com

2 4

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Apr 8

Looking forward to this event today with lovely colleagues and students from Paris, brilliant communication professionals and fab tutors and MA students from University of Milan!

6

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

Asko Lehmuskallio @verlook.bsky.social · Apr 7

The New York Times has installed *Visual Studies*, a series that explores how images move through and shape culture.

Great to see this kind of public attention! Hopefully the academic field with its research traditions is reflected in future contributions too.

www.nytimes.com/card/2025/04...

Opinion | There’s More to Selfies Than Meets the Eye

Is a selfie embarrassing? It depends on how you think about it.

www.nytimes.com

1 4 9

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · Apr 4

This is what you call two different readouts of the same meeting.

Go Denmark, Go Greenland!

The post by Marco Rubio
Met with Danish Foreign Minister Rasmussen in Brussels today to talk about the defense priorities shared by our two nations. We discussed the importance of increasing burden sharing within NATO and addressing threats to the Alliance.

A post by Lars Løkke Rasmussen

Honest and direct meeting with @SecRubio yesterday. I made it crystal clear that claims and statements about annexing Greenland are not only unacceptable and disrespectful. They amount to a violation of international law.

380 4.1K 14K

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

The New Yorker @newyorker.com · Apr 2

Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Ali Solomon. #NewYorkerCartoons

9 190 1.2K

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Apr 4

AI ambient imagery in the city.

1 1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Apr 3

The plight of my generation.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The Gen X Career Meltdown

Just when they should be at their peak, experienced workers in creative fields find that their skills are all but obsolete.

www.nytimes.com

1

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

T.J. Thomson @tjthomson.bsky.social · Apr 2

🤔 How would you fare with trying to sort photos from synthetic #AI images? Here's your opportunity to try it out. I had fun working with Michael Lucy and Matt Garrow on this interactive for @aunz.theconversation.com.

theconversation.com/can-you-tell...

@admscentre.org.au @ntsnetwork.bsky.social

Can you tell the difference between real and fake news photos? Take the quiz to find out

As the tide of AI ‘slop’ rises, it’s more important than ever to hone your reality-checking skills.

theconversation.com

3 6

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Apr 1

www.ft.com/content/291d...

Anime lessons in the limits of AI

Generative images show us the risks of endowing the technology with magical powers

www.ft.com

2

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Mar 29

If you want to know more about the AI side of style transfer and how it aligns with capitalist extraction in the creative industry, take a look at our #chi2025 paper:

arxiv.org/abs/2409.17410

1 3 21

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Mar 23

Here you can also find a blogpost I wrote about the article when it first was published:
genericvisuals.leeds.ac.uk/out-now-new-... 7/7

Out now: New article in IJCS on generic visuals of Covid-19 in the news | Generic Visuals in the News: The Role of Stock Photos and Simple Data Visualizations in Assembling Publics

genericvisuals.leeds.ac.uk

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Mar 23

I am currently mobilizing the idea of symbolic reiteration and overall visual genericity that we developed in this paper and the Generic Visuals in the News project in my current work on the aesthetics of genericity in visual generative AI, so stay tuned! 6/

1 1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Mar 23

Fourth, we argue that, by invoking the nation, generic visuals of Covid-19 also foreground the role of the state in grappling with the crisis, in ways made possible by their symbolic reiteration. 5/

1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Mar 23

Third, we explain that, unlike iconic visuals, these generic visuals ‘work’ through symbolic reiteration, or the performative repetition and resignification of a range of visual resources across news stories and other sources. 4/

1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Mar 23

Second, we mobilize Michael Billig's concept of ‘banal nationalism’ and argue that different types of generic visuals of Covid-19 promote banal visions and versions of nationalism, localism and cosmopolitanism in the face of the crisis, in different but connected ways. 3/

1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Mar 23

In this article we do four things. First, we argue that we need to explore the communicative work that generic visuals do during events like the Covid-19 crisis. Specifically, we explain why stock photos and simple data visualizations should be studied together under this label. 2/

1

Giorgia Aiello @giorgiaaiello.bsky.social · Mar 23

Here is the first article that was came out of the Generic Visuals in the News project in 2022, in the International Journal of Cultural Studies' special issue "COVID-19: The Cultural Constructions of a Global Crisis" (Paul Frosh and Myria Georgiou, Eds.). 1/
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

‘Generic visuals’ of Covid-19 in the news: Invoking banal belonging through symbolic reiteration - Giorgia Aiello, Helen Kennedy, C.W. Anderson, Camilla Mørk Røstvik, 2022

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, images of the virus molecule and ‘flatten-the-curve’ line charts were inescapable. There is now a vast visual repert...

journals.sagepub.com

1 1 2

Reposted by Giorgia Aiello

Heleen Touquet @heleentouquet.bsky.social · Mar 18

Free University Brussels is opening 12 postdoc fellowships focusing specifically on attracting censored American researchers www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/1490...

Brussels university VUB opens doors to 'censored' American researchers

"US universities and their scholars are the biggest victims of this political and ideological interference. They are seeing millions in research funding disappear for ideological reasons."

www.brusselstimes.com

1 14 24