Where will you study today?

Franklin University Switzerland is a small liberal arts university located in the southern Swiss city of Lugano. Founded in 1969, Franklin is one of a handful of higher education institutions accredited in the United States and Switzerland and the only university in Switzerland that provides a flexible, interdisciplinary liberal arts education.

About Franklin

Meet the challenge.

Work directly with our Admissions representatives to find out what makes a Franklin education unique, complete the application process and determine your eligibility for merit or need-based financial aid. See our travel schedule to find out when a representative will be in your area or better yet, schedule a campus visit and come see for yourself.

Admission to Franklin

Explore boundaries and go beyond.

Regardless of the program, your education at Franklin will be rigorous, academic and professional, with a focus on cross-cultural study and learning through direct experience. Our curriculum encourages multi-disciplinary study, and our Academic Travel program, included in tuition, provides an off-campus study opportunity for two weeks every semester.

Academics at Franklin

Leap into new perspectives.

Students at Franklin come from over 50 countries. Interacting with students from other traditions and cultures makes social life a part of the Franklin learning experience. Activities, on-campus housing and dining, and a strong support network help you to build lasting relationships with your peers and provide everything you need to be successful in your studies.

Life at Franklin

See what we're up to.

Franklin students, faculty and staff are active and involved in many academic and social initiatives. Our calendar is full of events organized by faculty and students for learning and interaction that go beyond the classroom environment. Take a few minutes to read our stories and find out how our students and faculty are succeeding in their endeavors all over the world.

Franklin News and Events

Take advantage of resources.

Franklin offers a wide range of services for students, faculty, staff and friends to support life, work and learning on campus. Making use of these services will give you the tools you need to be successful both in and out of the classroom.

Campus Services

Communication and Media Studies

Welcome to the Department of Communication and Media Studies.

Communication and media are central features of our lives. From navigating relationships, to crafting professions, to engaging in local and global issues, we are always using communication and media. Recent years have seen the proliferation of media forms, technologies and industries. Indeed, there has never been a better time to study communication and media. No matter what kind of work you do or what kind of life you live, understanding communication and media processes is fundamental to your health and wealth. The Department of Communication and Media Studies at Franklin University Switzerland focuses upon four key threads in communication and media studies: (1) Media forms, practices, technologies and industries, (2) empirical and critical media and communication research with an emphasis on emerging and social media, (3) media uses and effects (individual, relational, cultural and social) and (4) the relationship between media and global processes. 

Faculty

  • Alison Vogelaar

  • Satomi Sugiyama

  • Nello Barile

  • Antonio Bova

Research and Initiatives

Professors Gabriel Gee and Alison Vogelaar Publish New Book

Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Communication, Gabriel Gee, and Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Alison Vogelaar, have co-edited a new publication entitled “Changing representations of nature and city: the 1960s – 1970s and their legacies”, in Routledge Advanced Series in Art History, 2018.

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Publication Highlights

Sugiyama, S. (2019). Wearable technologies: Fashion, size and visibility. InA. Mascio, R. Menarini, S. Reinach, & I. Tolic (eds). The Size Effect: Measuring Design, Fashion and Media. Mimesis International. 

Barile, N., & Sugiyama, S. (2018). Wearing Data: From McLuhan’s “Extended Skin” to the Integration Between Wearable Technologies and a New Algorithmic Sensibility. Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture. DOI: 10.1080/1362704X.2018.1514847

Sugiyama, S. (2018). Exploration of expected interaction norms with a social robot in everyday life: A case of twitter analysis in Japan (long abstract). M. Funk et al. (eds). Envisioning Robots in Society—Politics, Power, and Public Space.  IOS Press Ebooks.

Vogelaar, A. E. and McKernan, C. M. (2018), Making Space for a Revolution: Occupy Wall Street as a Maker Movement, In J. Hunsinger and A. Schrock, Making our World: The Hacker and Maker Movements in Context(eds) Digital Formations, Peter Lang. 

Vogelaar, A. E., Hale, B. W. and Peat, A. P. (Eds) (2018). The Discourses of Environmental Collapse. Routledge. 

Gee, G. and VogelaarA. E. (Eds) (2018). Nature and City: Changing Representations, 1960s-1970s. Routledge. 

Shanahan, F., Seele, P. and Vogelaar, A. (2018). Persuasion. In Ø. Ihlen & R. L. Heath (Eds.)TheHandbook of Organizational Rhetoric and Communication: Foundations of Dialogue, Discourse, Narrative, and Engagement,Wiley. 

Sugiyama, S. (2017). The image of wearable ICTs: an exploration from a fashion perspectiveIn G. Motta, & A. Biagini (eds.), Fashion through History: Costumes, Symbols, Communication (vol. II). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. 

Barile, N., & Sugiyama, S. (2016). I am Her(e): Physical/cognitive robots and human intimacy in the imagery of Spike Jonze’s movies. J. Seibt, M. Nørskov, & S. S. Andersen (eds.), What social robots can and should do (pp. 335 – 339). IOS Press Ebooks. DOI 10.3233/978-1-61499-708-5-335

Sugiyama, S. (2015). Kawaii meiru and Maroyaka neko: Mobile emoji for relationship maintenance and aesthetic expressions among Japanese teens. First Monday, 20 (10), DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v20i10.5826 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5826

Vogelaar, A. (2015) Staging Revolution: The OWS Encampment at Zuccotti Park. Media Fields, 9. http://www.mediafieldsjournal.org/staging-revolution/

Barile, N. (2015). Branding the self in the age of emotional capitalism: The exploitation of prosumers, from the rhetoric of “double bind” to the hegemony of confession. LOGOS, 25.

Barile, N., & Sugiyama, S. (2015). The automation of taste: A theoretical exploration of mobile ICTs and social robots in the context of music consumption. International Journal of Social Robotics, 7(3), 407-416. DOI: 10.1007/s12369-015-0283-1

Bova, A. (2015). Promoting learning and development of students through argumentative interactions in the classroom. A study of the teacher’s questions in the learning contexts of higher education. Teaching Innovations, 28(3), 130-144. doi: 10.5937/inovacije1503130B

Vogelaar, A. and Hale, B. (2014). Constituting Swiss Heritage: Discourse and the Management of Invasive Species International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 3(2), pp. 130-149.

Majors and Minors

Communication and Media Studies

The Communication and Media Studies Program at Franklin focuses upon four key threads in communication and media studies:

  1. Media forms, practices, technologies and industries
  2. Empirical and critical media and communication research (with an emphasis on emerging and social media)
  3. Media uses and effects (individual, relational, cultural, and social)
  4. The relationship between media and global processes.

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Minors