Gianni Riotta is Visiting Professor at Princeton University in the French and Italian Department, specializing in digital humanities, machine writing, social history and visual history of Italy.
Since 2018, he has directed the Master in Journalism and Multimedia Communication and the Data Lab Research Center at Luiss University in Rome, where he coordinates the Italian Digital Media Observatory (IDMO). The project, funded under the European call CEF-TC-2020-2 EDMO, will constitute an international hub aimed at supporting and implementing the work of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) with a consortium formed by Telecom, Rai, Gedi, the University of Torvergata, NewsGuard, Pagella Politica, T6 Ecosystem, which will join forces and expertise to fight disinformation.
He participated in the Horizon 2020 project SOMA (Social Observatory for Disinformation and Social Media Analysis) against disinformation, establishing the Aletheia Center of Excellence, and Media Futures “Data-driven innovation hub for the media value chain” and co-directed a project at Luiss on the diffusion of coordinated disinformation operations in Italy with Harvard University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He is part of the Advisory Board of NewsGuard and EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory).
Gianni Riotta was Professor of Logic at the University of Palermo, Professor of Communication at the Media Lab of the University of Bologna founded by Umberto Eco, visiting professor of social media and digital humanities at IMT Lucca. Editorialist for La Stampa, La Repubblica, Huffington Post, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, he was director of Tg1 Rai and Sole 24 Ore, deputy director of La Stampa and Corriere della Sera. He was a correspondent and columnist for Corriere della Sera and L’Espresso based in New York.
In 2015 Riotta founded the digital Start Up Catch which obtained funding from Google’s Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund, to study the spread of fake news. Gianni Riotta is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the editorial staff of Foreign Policy. He contributes to the BBC World Service. His editorials have been published by the New York Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Foreign Affairs.
His books have been translated into numerous languages: The Prince of Clouds (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), the novel, was a finalist at the “Prix Médicis” in France, won the “European Florio Award 2002” in the United Kingdom and was selected by BOL.COM as “Book of the Year 2001”; Cambio di stagione (Feltrinelli, 1992) was included in the Meridiano Mondadori Anthology of the best Italian stories 1900-2000. His latest books are Il web ci rende liberi? (Einaudi, 2013) and Il mondo di McCurry (Mondadori, 2015). Foreign Policy and Prospect included Gianni Riotta in the ranking of the “World 100 global thinkers”.
Gianni Riotta graduated in Logic from the University of Palermo and obtained an MS from Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism. In 2011 he was awarded an Honorary Degree by the Archivio di Stato, Rome, for his work in protecting the Italian cultural heritage. In 2014, President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Gianni Riotta Commendatore all’Ordine della Repubblica Italiana motu proprio. Riotta is a member of the board of directors of the Fondazione Memoriale Caduti per la Pace, of the Fulbright Commission and of the Italian Academy of Columbia University. He lives between New York and Rome. Among the most well-known top international influencers, Twitter @riotta, Instagram @gianniriotta and manages the website www.riotta.it.
