Professor Paolo Granata, University of Toronto

An award-winning educator, author, and cross-disciplinary media scholar.

Paolo Granata is an Associate Professor at St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto.

As a leading expert in media ecology – nurtured by the centuries-old tradition of his Alma Mater, the University of Bologna – his research and teaching interests lie broadly in the areas of media ethics, semiotics, print culture, and visual studies.

Over the last 20 years of his academic career in research, teaching, and public engagement, Professor Granata has held positions at the University of Bologna, the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and Turin, and most recently at the University of Toronto, with affiliation in the Department of Italian Studies, the School of Cities, and the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. From 2024 to 2025, he was a visiting professor in Italy, Brazil, and China.

Since 2011, he has been a Marshall McLuhan Centenary Fellow at the Faculty of Information and since 2019 a Senior Fellow at Massey College, Toronto.

His latest book is Generative Knowledge: Think, Learn, Create with AI (Wiley, 2026), an essential reading for educators, students, researchers, and professionals seeking a deeper understanding of AI’s impact on intellectual life and a practical roadmap for navigating its implications.

Media Ethics Lab

Since 2019, Professor Granata is the founder and director of the Media Ethics Lab, a research hub that studies the ways that digital media practices and emerging technologies are marked by ethical issues and decisive political, societal, and cultural questions.

Professor Granata is passionate about safeguarding human rights in the digital sphere. Serving since 2018 as a member of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, his advocacy efforts are focused on digital sustainability.

As a cultural strategist and an advocate of sustainable development, in 2017 his research and consultancy activity led to the designation of Toronto as a UNESCO Creative City. He is also the Chair of the #CultureForSDGs initiative.

Learn More

Recent Projects

Recent Talks

Professor Granata's latest presentations, covering a range of thought-provoking topics and ideas.

AI and the Future of Learning - Paolo Granata

Keynotes, Workshops, and Seminars Proposals

Topics and Themes for Engagements.

Exploring the Metaverse

An in-depth look at how VR/AR/MR can revolutionize learning and collaboration in education and coworking.

AI for Education

Exploring AI's transformative role in reshaping educational strategies and enhancing learning experiences.

The Laws of Media

Playing with McLuhan's Laws of Media to decode the essence and impact of technological innovation.

Digital Sustainability

Exploring the intersection of UN Global Goals (SDGs) with digital culture for sustainable future pathways.

AI is Shaping a New Human Environment

Over the past few years, emerging technologies and unforeseen digital media practices have given rise to ethical issues, political and societal questions of critical importance to our evolving future. It's time to explore new ethical perspectives and sustainable frameworks to underpin the building blocks of our human-technology ecosystem.

The Medium is (still) the Message

Environments are not just containers, but are processes that change the content totally. New media are new environments.
That is why the media are the message.

Marshall McLuhan

Six Core Ideas Central to my Keynotes

1

It Is the Context that Matters

Holistic sensemaking as the key to embrace and navigate the age of AI.

2

Digital Sustainability

Embracing digital innovation to ensure no one is left behind, building the future we want.

3

The Machine Learns to Write

LLMs and Generative AI tranform the essence of human communication.

4

Humanistic Innovation

Reviving the humanistic tradition to inspire and nurture innovative and creative thinking.

5

Diving into the Metaverse

Leveraging VR/AR/MR to enrich and extend the boundaries of human experience.

6

Design Thinking

Exploring innovative learning strategies to reshape pedagogical practices.

Books and Pubblications

Professor Granata authored several books and more than 50 publications – essays, articles, book-chapters, and policy reports – in Italian, English, French, and Spanish.
Check Academia.edu or ORCID: 0000-0002-8441-618X for more.

Latest Book

Generative Knowledge:
Think, Learn, Create with AI

Wiley-Blackwell | October 2025 | 288 pages
A bold exploration of how knowledge begets new knowledge when human creativity meets artificial intelligence.

What does AI mean for the future of knowledge creation and the ways we come to know? And how does it redefine the very processes by which knowledge emerges and evolves?
In Generative Knowledge: Think, Learn, Create with AI, University of Toronto professor, award-winning educator, and internationally recognized media and communication scholar Paolo Granata presents an original framework that recasts AI as an epistemic partner—an interface for inquiry and invention that reshapes how we understand, explore, and produce knowledge.

Available worldwide in print and e-book at: