Cinema, Education, and the Internet: Which Convergences?

This chapter addresses the relationship between cinema, education and the Internet. We focus namely on the contributions of cinema to learning in present society and on new paths for its integration in educational contexts, according to recent paradigms of teaching and lifelong learning. To study this relationship in the context of current digital lifestyles, we take into account phenomena of transmedia and media convergence made possible by the evolution of the Internet. Technological (r)evolution brought a profound transformation into users: from passive consumers of information produced, they have become also producers and distributors of content (their own, or otherwise), which continues to have a profound social and cultural impact on contemporary society. In view of these dynamics, cinema as an industry presents new opportunities and possibilities to intervene and finds a new type of audience, which, in addition to being spectators, can be producers of audiovisual content in their daily lives. We continue to explore the strong pedagogical potential of cinema, as the information conveyed and the audiovisual stimuli composing it are easily assimilated by viewers, while cinematographic content takes on increasing and transversal importance in the various digital media and platforms.