[{Image src='Colombo_Fausto.jpg' caption='' height='300' alt='Fausto Colombo' class='image_left'}]
!!Fausto Colombo (1955-2025)

__Academia Europaea mourns the loss of [Professor Fausto Colombo|Member/Colombo_Fausto], member of the [Film, Media and Visual Studies|Acad_Main/Sections/Film_media_and_visual_studies] Section since 2016, and member of its Section Committee between 2017 and 2023. __

!Obituary by Göran Bolin MAE and Kirsten Drotner MAE

Professor Fausto Colombo has sadly passed away on the 14 January 2025. 
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Fausto Colombo graduated in Philosophy at [Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore|https://www.unicatt.it] in Milano, Italy in 1978, received his postgraduate degree in Communication Sciences at Scuola Superiore delle Comunicazioni Sociali in 1982, and became full professor in 2003, also at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. In 1994 he founded the Research Centre on Media and Communication (OssCom) and served as its director until 2012. His administrative services to the university also included being director of the Communication and Performing Arts department 2013-2024 and Rector’s delegate for Institutional Branding, Communication and Promotion 2017-2024. 
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Although Fausto Colombo spent his entire academic life at the same institution, he was a highly international scholar, and contributed greatly to the internationalization of Italian media and communication research. Besides his engagement in __Academia Europaea__, he was also a member of the Executive Board of the [European Communication Research and Education Association|https://ecrea.eu] (ECREA) between 2012-2016, and also served as the local organizer of the ECREA Doctoral Summer School for several years. In 2015, he held the UNESCO Chair in International Communication at Université Stendhal in Grenoble, and he was Visiting professor in 2014 at Celsa, Université Sorbonne (Paris) and in 2018 in Lyon at Université Lumière Paris 2. He was also active in leading roles in several COST Actions over the years. 
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Fausto Colombo’s research interests were wide and included the relation between digitalization of the media and social change, media and generations, and media industries, not least from an historical perspective. His first book, ''Gli archivi imperfetti'' (Vita e Pensiero, 1986) discussed the links between the computerization of archives and social memory. The digitalization of the media followed him throughout his career and resulted in a wealth of publications. It also blended with his interest in digital media and generational change, for example in his co-authored article “ ‘I use it correctly!’: The use of ICTs among Italian grandmothers in a generational perspective” (''Human Technology'', vol 14, 2018), and his “The generational role of media and social memory: a research agenda” in ''Communicazioni Sociali: Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural Studies'' (2019:2). 
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Another strand in his research concerned the history of the Italian media industries. His book ''La cultura sottile. Media e industria culturale in Italia dall’Ottocento agli anni Novanta'' (Bompiani, 1998) is a rich account of the Italian media industries from the Nineteenth Century to the 1990s, which was followed up in ''Media and Communication in Italy. Historical and Theoretical Perspectives'' (Vita e Pensiero, 2019). 
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Fausto Colombo was a researcher that never stopped being curious, and enthusiastically engaged in public debates and open lectures, the last of which he held in November 2024. Those of us who were fortunate to know him also appreciated his generous personality, his warmth and humour, and his sociality and positive approach to life. His philosophical training was always present in his work and in his gentle approach to the world, indicated in the title to one of his books from the latest years – ''Ecologia dei media. Manifesto per una comunicazione gentile'' (Vita e Pensiero, 2020). He will be missed by fellow academics around the world, his colleagues at the department at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and by his family. 
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[Göran Bolin|Member/Bolin_Göran] and [Kirsten Drotner|Member/Drotner_Kirsten]\\
Past chairs of the Film, Media and Visual Studies section