Le «Digital Humanities» e la ricerca umanistica

[Autom. eng. transl.] Digitization processes are reformulating information in digital terms through their transposition on electronic media. The process involves the translation and transmission of this information in the form of data which is a "discrete" representation in the mathematical sense of the term, i.e. composed of separate, non-continuous parts. Unlike analogue data, digital data – from digit which in English means "numerical figure" – is therefore a translation into numerical elements of an initial source which will not maintain an "exact" relationship with the latter, but will rather be one representation that, paraphrasing Umberto Eco, will say almost the same thing; and behind that almost lies the interpretation of who is following the digitization process and who has programmed that something that is mechanically implementing the process. This article presents some reflections on how multimedia shapes and reforms interdisciplinary research in the field of Italian studies and visual culture.