Petra Mazzoni

Petra Mazzoni is a Ph.D. student in Science of Communication, Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG) at the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Università di Lugano (beginning 2023).  The main topic of the doctoral project concerns the analysis of the daily use of digital and traditional media at an intergenerational level.

Petra is also a researcher at the Media and MINT Laboratory (MEM, from 2024) and the Competence Centre for Innovation and Research on Education Systems (CIRSE, from 2019), DFA at the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland. 

The undergraduate education consists of a Bachelor of Science in Communication Sciences (USI, 2015), and a Master of Science in Communication Sciences with a specialization in Media Management (minor in Digital Communication and Content Design) (USI, 2018).

Petra has been working at USI since 2015, at the Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication (ITDxC, 2018-2023) and the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG, 2015-currently). In this context, she has been involved in multiple research projects on different topics and together with other universities and institutions at the national and international level, such as projects of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), projects commissioned by the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), Radiotelevisione della Svizzera italiana (RSI), and the Società Cooperativa per la Radiotelevisione Svizzera di lingua italiana (CORSI).

The main research topics that Petra focuses on are media use (e.g., by young people as in national research SWIPE (0-5 years old), MIKE (6-12 years old), and JAMES (12-19 years old), media concentration (GMICP-Global Media and Internet concentration project), and artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism (national and international research), and competencies assessment in the education system (e.g., PISA- Program for International Student Assessment and VeCoF- Verification of Attainment of Fundamental Competencies, or even ROSE-Reflective Online Search Education).

In the academic field as well, Petra was the social media manager for the Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication and was a member and general coordinator of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the 7th “European Communication Conference” 2018 of the European Communication, Research and Education Association (ECREA). 
Currently, Petra is member of the organizing committee of the 2025 workshop of the "Communication History" section of ECREA.

In the teaching field, Petra has been an assistant for two Bachelor's courses in the Faculty of Communication Sciences, Culture and Society, specifically for the "Visual Communication" course for the Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication (ITDxC) and the "Social Media Management" course for the Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG). 
At DFA, Petra is a lecturer for the Bachelor's courses: “Education Science Module V: Teaching and Research” and for the “Media Education”, and for the Master's courses: “Media and Technology Education” and “Digital Education”. 
Petra is also in involved in the Movie & Media Labs held during the Locarno Film Festival. 

Besides the academic field, Petra has worked as an newsroom collaborator for a radio news program at Rete Tre (RSI) and was communication and marketing manager for a middle school and high school in Ticino.