Augusto Valeriani is an Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Bologna, where he focuses on political communication, digital media, and journalism. Currently, he is an Associate Investigator (unit leader) of the PRIN2022 project "TASKs (Trust, Authority, Sense and Knowledge)." He was an Associate Investigator (unit leader) of the PRIN2017 project "I-PolHyS. Investigating polarization in Hybrid Media Systems."He conducted research periods at the University of Westminster in London (2005-2006) and the Annenberg School for Communication in Philadelphia (2009-2010). He has published four monographs (the latest with Oxford University Press in 2021) and several chapters in collective books in Italian and English on journalism, political communication, and international communication with a particular focus on digital media. His research has been published in journals such as Current Sociology; Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication; New Media and Society; The International Journal of Press/Politics; Information, Communication and Society; Social Media + Society; European Journal of Communication.For the three-year period 2024-2026, he is the editor of the journal Comunicazione Politica (ComPol), the flagship journal of the Italian Association of Political Communication.