Metamorphosis of space into digital scholarship. A research on hybrid mediation in a University context

The digitalization of the university system in Italy has proceeded “bottom-up” through the dissemination of good practices towards more and more institutionalized interventions until the spring of 2020. With the Prime Ministerial Decree (DPCM) on 9 March 2020, in fact, Italian universities were forced to sus- pend face to face attendance of degree courses due to the Covid-19 emergency. This made it necessary to rethink the educational space that became digital. This space requires the didactic mediation of the teacher, without which the most sophisti- cated offers would remain “mute”. The research moves from our specific interest in identifying the main components of the imposed digital “metamorphosis” and the forms and formats of hybridization introduced in educational mediation in times of Covid-19 crisis. The work presents the case of a “hybrid mediation” emerging in an academic context. The research project followed a phenomenological approach and a method of practical analysis with mixed methods with four different data collection actions.