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—Generative Knowledge: Think, Learn, Create with AI (Wiley, 2026)—is 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
Newsletter
Generative Thinkers Newsletter
A gathering of educators, researchers, practitioners and curious learners who use AI as an epistemic partner, an interface for inquiry and invention that reshapes how we think, learn, and create. Join us! generativethinkers.substack.com
Recent Talks
Professor Granata's latest presentations, covering a range of thought-provoking topics and ideas.
Keynotes, Workshops, and Seminars Proposals
Topics and Themes for Engagements.
AI and the Future of Knowledge
How AI is reshaping the way we think, learn, and create knowledge.
AI and Critical Thinking
Cultivating epistemic wellness and critical-generative thinking with AI.
Learning with AI
Principles, strategies and methodologies for generative learning in the age of AI.
AI and Creativity
Reclaiming creativity as an intellectual virtue in the age of AI.
Exploring the Metaverse
An in-depth look at how VR/AR/MR can revolutionize learning and collaboration in education and coworking.
The Future of 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.
For an intelligent use of artificial intelligence
AI gives us access to more knowledge than ever before. The real question is what we do with it. Using AI well demands competence, curiosity, and critical judgment, thus the ability to ask better questions, recognize what has genuine value, and generate insights that neither mind nor machine could reach alone.
The Medium is (still) the Message
What we know always changes when the medium through which we know it changes.
Six Core Ideas Central to my Keynotes
It Takes Knowledge to Generate New Knowledge
Domain expertise is the golden rule for any meaningful use of AI.
Digital Sustainability
Embracing digital innovation to ensure no one is left behind, building the future we want.
Welcome to the Turing Galaxy
AI as the new epistemic environment reshaping how we think, learn, and create.
Humanistic Innovation
Reviving the humanistic tradition to inspire and nurture innovative and creative thinking.
The Lee Sedol Effect
AI's deepest value lies in elevating human potential, not replacing it.
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.
Generative Knowledge:
Think, Learn, Create with AI
Wiley-Blackwell | 2026 | 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:
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“This book is a manifesto for a new cognitive culture and arrives precisely when we need to reimagine what knowing means, to turn AI into an investment instead of a crutch. Granata’s Generative Knowledge is that investment.”
Derrick de Kerckhove Author of The Skin of Culture“In Generative Knowledge, Paolo Granata reveals AI as the new medium of human cognition and communication. A must-read for practitioners and curious minds navigating the future of knowledge.”
Pierre Lévy Author of Collective IntelligenceOther Books by Paolo Granata
Conocimiento generativo
2026
Conoscenza generativa
2026
生成式知识
2026
Six Memos for a Hyperconnected World
2023
Squid Game Unmasked
2023
Introduction to Media Ecology
2021
Bob Dylan Poeta Errante
2017
Ecologia dei media
2015
Mediabilia
2012
Arte, estetica e nuovi media
2009
Arte in rete
2001
Latest Videos
Highlight from Field Trips
Professor Granata regularly leads students on enlightening field trips, offering immersive learning experiences globally. Check it out!
Big Tech, Big A.I., Big Brother Fred Peabody, 2025
The Art of Selling Lies TVO, 2019
Glenn! Glenn Gould TV, 2019
Documentaries
Professor Granata has been featured in various documentaries, focusing on media, communication, and societal impacts.
An entertaining and educational board game that stimulates players’ cooperative, innovative, and creative thinking skills.
Inspired by legendary Canadian philosopher and innovative media thinker Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), The MediuM is a gaming experience of Laws of Media. The New Science (1988), developed by Marshall McLuhan and his son Eric McLuhan (1942-2018). Also known as “McLuhans’ Tetrad”, the Laws of Media reveal the four constant rules that govern all human innovations, four questions that can be asked in order to understand the implications that will inevitably result from any medium.
Enjoy escaping the Maelstrom and prove your mastery of media!
Designed by Paolo Granata
Media Appearances
Have any project on your mind?
Get In Touch
Contact
paolo.granata@utoronto.ca
Postal Address
81 St. Mary Street, Toronto M5S 1J4
Social Media
Check It Out
Websites
Media Ethics Lab
www.mediaethics.ca
The Toronto School Initiative
www.thetorontoschool.ca
Culture For SDGs