Gabriele Balbi is Assistant Professor in Media Studies at the Institute of Media and Journalism (USI-Lugano). In the Faculty of Communication Sciences, he is Vice and Study Dean, director of the China Media Observatory, responsible of "communication and media" minor at BA level. He got a BA and MA in Communication Sciences at the University of Turin (Italy) in 2002 and 2004 and a PhD in Communication Sciences and Social History of Communication at USI-Lugano (Switzerland) in 2008. He was Visiting Fellow at Harvard University (USA) and Visiting Research Student at Maastricht University (The Netherlands) in 2007, Visiting Scholar at Columbia University (USA) and University of Westminster (UK) in 2011 and 2012, Douglas Byrne Marconi Fellow 2012 (Oxford University, UK) and lecturer in media and politics at Northumbria University (UK) in 2012 and 2013. His main areas of research are media history and history of telecommunications. He wrote four books, several book chapters and articles for scientific journals on these topics.