- Social Research Methods and Methodology, Precarious Employment, Social Change, Social Movements, CAQDAS, Constructivist Grounded Theory, and 23 moreQualitative comparative analysis (QCA), In-depth Interviews, Research Methods and Methodology, Journalism, Visual Methodologies, Atlas.ti, Visual Studies, Media Sociology, Media Studies, Grounded Theory (Research Methodology), Case Study Research, New Media, Digital Media, Italy, Action Research, Transnational Social Movements, Student movements, Trade unions, Alternative Media, Anti-Corruption, Accountability, Software Studies, and Media Archaeologyedit
- I am Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Bologna. I have bee... moreI am Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Bologna.
I have been recently awarded an ERC Starting Grant 2018 for the research project BIT-ACT: Bottom-up initiative and anti-corruption technologies: how citizens use ICTs to fight corruption.
My research lays at the intersection of different fields of study, including political sciences, political communication, social movement studies and digital media studies. I graduated in Communication Sciences (Mass Communication) at the University of Padova, in 2003. I was awarded my PhD in Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute, in 2009. From January 2011 to December 2012, I have been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Department of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to my current position, I have been a Research Fellow of the Centre on Social Movement Studies – COSMOS from 2013 to 2019 and Assistant Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore from 2015 to 2019.
From 2015 to 2019, I worked as the Principal Investigator of the research project PiCME – Political participation in Complex Media Environments (2015-2019, Grant Agreement Number RBSI14GUJE). I have been investigating how institutional and grassroots political actors interact with different types of media organizations, professionals and technologies in their daily political activities connected to the realms of working rights and precarious labour, on the one side, and corruption, transparency and accountability, on the other side. With my research team, I examine these topics investigating Greece, Italy, and Spain. While not originally focused on distinct ICTs to struggle against corruption, PiCME triggered my interest in the many attempts to create digital platforms and services to counter corruption and I began to redirect my research in this direction, as one of my latest articles shows that covers how Italian and Spanish anti-corruption activists employ (big) digital data to sustain their campaigns.
From 2013 to 2015, I worked as a researcher in the ANTICORRP project funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (Grant Agreement Number 290529) to investigate factors promoting or hindering effective anti-corruption policies. I was part of the European University Institute team and involved in the activities of Work Package 11 focusing on accountability mechanisms. In particular, I investigated the role of civil society actors in the struggle against corruption in Italy, also paying attention to the long-standing grassroots opposition to organized crime in the country, using in-depth interviews and online questionnaires with activists. Additionally, I conducted desk research on Bulgaria, Brazil, Hungary and Spain. My participation in ANTICORRP allowed me to become familiar with corruption studies and, in the next few years, I began to work on this from the perspective of social movement studies, paying particular attention to the communicative dimension of grassroots anti-corruption activists.edit
Anti-corruption efforts from the grassroots that make use of digital media to hinder corrupt behaviors are flourishing worldwide. In many cases, these efforts see activists interact with big data along with other types of data. They do... more
Anti-corruption efforts from the grassroots that make use of digital media to hinder corrupt behaviors are flourishing worldwide. In many cases, these efforts see activists interact with big data along with other types of data. They do this in the framework of broader communicative infrastructure in which activists create, employ, and spread big data to support their struggles. As well, they do so differently, according to a diverse range of activists’ local situations across the world. The article uses examples of anti-corruption efforts in Brazil, India, and Spain to illustrate how the grounded theory method might help researchers to produce knowledge that escapes a universalistic and global vision of datafication detached from activists’ lived and local experiences. The article first briefly outlines what grounded theory is, the main steps in a grounded theory study, and its applications in media and communication studies. It then moves to a broader discussion of two relevant elements of grounded theory – sensitizing concepts and theoretical sampling – in taking into consideration data-enabled activism as an emergent phenomenon that might take many shapes. Then, it considers the emphasis on the situation in which data-enabled activism spreads out through a brief discussion of one relevant development of grounded theory, which is situational analysis, to solve the tension between the global and the local in data-enabled activism.
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This article addresses the following general question: how do movement cultures of participation shape activists' communication strategies in the construction of visibility for their protests? While other scholars have tackled this issue... more
This article addresses the following general question: how do movement cultures of participation shape activists' communication strategies in the construction of visibility for their protests? While other scholars have tackled this issue at the theoretical level, in this article I address this enquiry through a concrete case study-the Greek Indignants (Aγανακτισμένοι) and, more specifically, the occupation of Syntagma square-and employing the lens of culture at the analytical level. Overall, the main theoretical claim behind this article is that we cannot consider movement cultures as a monolithic construct transversally affecting activists' usages of both digital media and non-digital media. First, there is the need to understand social movements' cultures as embedded into their broader context. Second, as the empirical analysis shows, movement cultures related to a specific type of practice-i.e. the one of participation-hold more explanatory power when we split them into different subdimensions to then understand how each of them intertwines with a specific aspect of activists' communication strategies.
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This editorial defines big data as an inherently political object and then briefly discusses its ontological , epistemological, and methodological implications in the social sciences. Furthermore, it addresses these issues in connections... more
This editorial defines big data as an inherently political object and then briefly discusses its ontological , epistemological, and methodological implications in the social sciences. Furthermore, it addresses these issues in connections with the realm of politics, political participation and political mobilization. Finally, it addresses three main emergent themes related to big data in the broad realm of politics. First, big data as a methodological conundrum-something that can possibly empower or completely bias research activities and results. Second, big data as an object of study in its own right, a contested research and political terrain characterized by strong power dynamics between private and public actors and entwining with governance processes at all levels-from the national to the transnational one. Third, big data as research catalyser that can leverage our understanding of participation and contentious dynamics.
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The relationship between media and politics today is deeply entrenched in the wide use of information and communication technologies to the point that scholars speak about the emergence of hybrid media systems in which older and newer... more
The relationship between media and politics today is deeply entrenched in the wide use of information and communication technologies to the point that scholars speak about the emergence of hybrid media systems in which older and newer media logics combine. However, it is still unclear how the configuration of hybrid media systems changes across countries today, especially with regard to the interconnection between media and politics. In the article, we aim to develop a theoretical framework to capture such national differences. In so doing, we want to develop a heuristic device to understand whether the transformations brought about by information and communication technologies in the media and political realm also contribute to reshaping national media systems and to what extent. After outlining the main scope of the article in the ‘Introduction’ section, we discuss the theoretical framework that Hallin and Mancini developed to compare media systems across countries, and we present this framework’s main strengths and weaknesses when used as a tool for understanding the relationship between media and politics in the digital era. We then argue for the need for an updated and expanded version of such a theoretical framework: first, we update its four original dimensions (structure of media market, political parallelism, state intervention and journalistic professionalism) transversely including information and communication technologies–related indicators; second, we expand the original theoretical framework with one new dimension (grassroots participation) and the related indicators. In the ‘Conclusion’ section, we summarize our theoretical proposal and present some indicators and potential comparative data sources to assess similarities and differences of national media systems across countries. Finally, we also note two limitations of the article.
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This article investigates how activists employ Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and engage with data-‐activism in grassroots struggles against corruption. Based on a comparative research design that triangulates three... more
This article investigates how activists employ Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and engage with data-‐activism in grassroots struggles against corruption. Based on a comparative research design that triangulates three qualitative data sources — in-‐depth interviews, movements' doc-‐ uments and participatory platforms — the article analyses two campaigns: Riparte il Futuro in Italy and 15MpaRato in Spain. In so doing, the article casts light on how activists engage with digital data, revealing how their employment is connected to and consistent with the type of organizational structure and com-‐ munication strategy of the campaign. Moreover, the article evaluates how activists engage with three spe-‐ cific digital data-‐related practices — digital data creation, data usage and data transformation. Finally, the article illustrates that grasping the features of digital data-‐related practices also reflects how activists per-‐ ceive and enact distinct ideas of active citizenship and data transparency in their fight against corruption.
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This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communication engaged during anti-austerity protests by the Indignados in Spain, the precarious generation in Italy, and the Aganaktismenoi in Greece.... more
This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communication engaged during anti-austerity protests by the Indignados in Spain, the precarious generation in Italy, and the Aganaktismenoi in Greece. Drawing on 60 semi-structured interviews with activists and independent media producers involved in the 2011 wave of contention, we bring together social movement and communications theoretical frameworks to present a comparative critical analysis of digital protest media imaginaries. After examining the different socio-political and protest media contexts of the three countries translocally, our critical analysis emphasizes the emergence of three different imaginaries: in Spain the digital protest media imaginary was technopolitical, grounded in the politics and political economies of communication technologies emerging from the free culture movement; in Italy this imaginary was techno-fragmented, lacking cohesion, and failed to bring together old and new protest media logics; and finally in Greece it was techno-pragmatic, envisioned according to practical objectives that reflected the diverse politics and desires of media makers rather than the strictly technological or political affordances of the digital media forms and platforms. This research reveals how pivotal the temporal and geographical dimensions are when analyzed using theoretical perspectives from both communications and social movement research; moreover it emphasizes the importance of studying translocal digital protest media imaginaries as they shape movement repertoires of contention and communication; both elements are crucial to better understanding the challenges, limitations, successes and opportunities for digital protest media.
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The article tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to... more
The article tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies. In particular, the article argues that media ecology and media practice approaches serve well to reach this objective as: they recognize the complex multi-faceted array of media technologies, professions and contents with which social movement actors interact; they historicize the use of media technologies in social movements; and they highlight the agency of social movement actors in relation to media technologies while avoiding a media-centric approach to the subject matter. Second, this article employs a media practice perspective to explore two interrelated trends in contemporary societies that the articles in this special issue deal with: the personalization and individualization of politics, and the role of the grassroots in political mobilizations.
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Studies adopting the media ecology metaphor to investigate social movements form a promising strand of literature that has emerged in the last years to overcome the communicative reductionism permeating the study of the relation between... more
Studies adopting the media ecology metaphor to investigate social movements form a promising strand of literature that has emerged in the last years to overcome the communicative reductionism permeating the study of the relation between social movements and communication technologies. However, contributions that apply ecological visions to protest are scattered, and only seldom connect their analyses to more general media ecological frameworks. The article critically reviews and classifies the diverse strands of scholarship that adopt the ecological metaphor in their exploration of activism, and connects them with the more general literature on media and communication ecologies. Moreover, it extracts the constitutive elements of this literature that can help scholars to better address the complexity of communication within social movements, and it articulates four key lessons that a media ecology lens brings to the understanding of media and protest. Finally, the article further demonstrates the strengths of this approach through an illustration of the preliminary findings of an ongoing investigation on the 15M movement in Spain.
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The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, mediation, and mediatization—in order to build a conceptual framework to study social movements and the media. The article first provides a... more
The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, mediation, and mediatization—in order to build a conceptual framework to study social movements and the media. The article first provides a critical review of the literature about media and movements. Secondly, it offers an understanding of social movements as processes in which activists perform actions according to different temporalities and connect this understanding with the use of the 3 media related concepts mentioned above. Then, the resulting conceptual framework is applied to the Italian student movements. In the conclusion, benefits and challenges in the use of such framework are considered and lines of inquiry on current movements are suggested.
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The article discusses the mobilizations and resistance against precarity in Italy and Greece, before and after the economic crisis, showing how protest involving precarious workers - as well as precarity as a contentious issue - changed... more
The article discusses the mobilizations and resistance against precarity in Italy and Greece, before and after the economic crisis, showing how protest involving precarious workers - as well as precarity as a contentious issue - changed over time in the two countries. Through our analysis we illustrate two key points: First, we suggest that the most recent actions brought forward by precarious workers, both in Greece and Italy, call for a re-negotiation of what is, according to them, the workspace - and how the latter relates to their political and syndicalist activity, as well as the non-working environment. Second, we argue that the repertoire of contention is today broader than the one of the past cycle of mobilizations. During the latter, protest held the most prominent role, whilst today the repertoire includes a set of less contentious actions, such as the provision of services to precarious workers, as well as a revamp on mutualism as a form of resistance to the economic crisis. In examining the above, our article offers a contribution to the debate on trade unionism in contemporary European societies: the question that precarious workers' mobilization and resistance pose is, indeed, nothing less than what the content of unionism and the unionization procedures is today, in a divided and austerity-ridden Europe. The article is structured as follows: First, we present the changing context in which precarious workers’ engage in both in Italy and Greece. Then, we compare the precarious workers’ mobilizations in Italy and Greece before and after the economic crisis. Finally, in the conclusions, we reflect on how the changing contextual conditions intertwined with the evolution of protests in both countries, leading to changes in the field of struggle around precarity.
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Social movements and the messages they wish to spread are essentially visual phenomena. Although this is both an obvious and momentous assertion, social movement research has been hesitant to integrate visual data. Until lately, most... more
Social movements and the messages they wish to spread are essentially visual phenomena. Although this is both an obvious and momentous assertion, social movement research has been hesitant to integrate visual data. Until lately, most insights into the use of images in social movements originated from historical and media studies. This contribution presents the recent surge in literature devoted to the visual analysis of social movements. It focuses on activists’ practices of image production and distribution under certain media-historic constellations. In this perspective, the current opportunities to create and spread images of dissent are contrasted with previous appropriations of technical possibilities from early print to electronic media. In times of mobile devices combined with social network sites scholars of movement images are confronted with profound changes in the ways images contribute to the emergence and dynamics of social movements. Thus, we argue for a media-sensitive analysis of images in social movements.
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The news of recent mobilizations in Arab, European, and North-American countries quickly spread across the globe. Well before written reports analyzing the unfolding mobilizations, images of protests circulated widely through television... more
The news of recent mobilizations in Arab, European, and North-American countries quickly spread across the globe. Well before written reports analyzing the unfolding mobilizations, images of protests circulated widely through television channels, print newspapers, internet websites, and social media platforms. Pictures and videos of squares full of people protesting against their governments became the symbols of a new wave of contention that quickly spread from Tunisia to many other countries. Pictures and videos showing the gathering of people in Tahrir square (Egypt), Puerta del Sol (Spain), and Zuccotti Park (United States) quickly became vivid tools of “countervisuality” (Mirzoeff, 2011) that opposed the roaring grassroots political participation of hundreds of thousands people to the silent decisions taken in government and corporation buildings by small groups of politicians and managers. The presence, and relevance, of images in mobilizations of social movements is no novelty. Encounters with social movements have always been intrinsically tied to the visual sense. Activists articulate visual messages, their activities are represented in photos and video sequences, and they are ultimately rendered visible, or invisible, in the public sphere. Social movements produce and evoke images, either as a result of a planned, explicit, and strategic effort, or accidentally, in an unintended or undesired manner. At the same time, social movements are perceived by external actors and dispersed audiences via images which are produced both by themselves and others.
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The paper investigates the use of social media by the 53 candidates as governors at the last Italian regional elections in April 2010 and further explores the two hypotheses on the role of online technologies for political parties – that... more
The paper investigates the use of social media by the 53 candidates as governors at the last Italian regional elections in April 2010 and further explores the two hypotheses on the role of online technologies for political parties – that is the ‘politics as usual’ and the ‘equalization’ hypothesis – starting from two different points of view: first, regional elections; and, second, candidate’s appropriation, negotiation or resistance to the convergence and participatory culture distinctive of the contemporary media ecology. The aim of this article is to address the following research questions: 1) which are the different degrees of appropriation of convergence and participatory culture amongst Italian candidates during 2010 regional elections according to political parties’ dimension in terms of members, voters and resources? And 2) are different degrees of appropriation of convergence and participatory culture positively associated with political parties dimensions?
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This article aims to present an empirically grounded analysis of the field of actors mobilized against precarious work in Italy. Based on extensive fieldwork including interviews and document analysis, we discuss and compare four types of... more
This article aims to present an empirically grounded analysis of the field of actors mobilized against precarious work in Italy. Based on extensive fieldwork including interviews and document analysis, we discuss and compare four types of social and political actors and their organizing patterns: traditional trade unions, radical trade unions, groups of self-organized precarious workers, and grassroots activist groups. The underlying questions focus on patterns of organization and coalition building. By analyzing how precarious workers organize, which goals they have, which kinds of collective actions they engage in, and how they connect to other actors, we found that distinctive strategies lead to diverse degrees of agency and subjectivity that precarious workers develop, ranging from almost nonexistent to high degrees of subjectivity.
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Social movements are also producers of symbolic resources, since they construct new collective identities and provide alternative system of meanings to societies. This was particularly significant with regard to recent struggles against... more
Social movements are also producers of symbolic resources, since they construct new collective identities and provide alternative system of meanings to societies. This was particularly significant with regard to recent struggles against work insecurity in Italy. There, in a discursive context dominated by the so-called ‘flexibility political mantra’, activists raised their voice in order to identify a novel social problem, precarity, and a novel social subject, precarious workers. The paper starts from these premises in order to investigate the so-called media sociali, a particular kind of media practice that had been developed by Italian activists involved in the long protest campaign against precarity, namely the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP). Probably, the media sociali are the most evident attempt to construct a fresh imagery based on precarious workers living and working conditions and to provide an alternative cultural grammar able to speak about precarity. The paper gives back the most important mechanism on which the media sociali rests through the living voices of activists involved in their elaboration: the mechanism of political socialization and social networking as well as the mechanism of diffusion and mutual recognition. Moreover, the paper proposes further reflections about the way in which those activists involved in the EMP perceived the media sociali. In doing so, the paper presents different ways of interpreting political conflict in contemporary Italian social movements and argues that the media sociali are an interesting attempt to overcome both mainstream and independent media in the construction of precarious workers’ imagery and political socialization. Interviews with activists and social movement generated documents are the main data source, investigated according to a qualitative analysis approach.
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The recent cycle of social struggles against precarity in Italy has been characterized by an extensive use of images representing precarious workers. This contribution explores this in the case of the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP) protest... more
The recent cycle of social struggles against precarity in Italy has been characterized by an extensive use of images representing precarious workers. This contribution explores this in the case of the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP) protest campaign. The subversion of existing popular culture traditions was the main objective of the activists' newly created icons such as San Precario, Serpica Naro and other visual tools. The visual work on gender in the EMP seemed to fill a gap between theoretical work on the feminization of affective and immaterial labour and the less predominant presence of gender. Visual icons seem to have been at least as successful as text messages in publicizing the precarity discourse and their production deserves further attention.
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The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, mediation, and mediatization—in order to build a conceptual framework to study social movements and the media. The article first provides a... more
The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, mediation, and mediatization—in order to build a conceptual framework to study social movements and the media. The article first provides a critical review of the literature about media and movements. Secondly, it offers an understanding of social movements as processes in which activists perform actions according to different temporalities and connect this understanding with the use of the 3 media related concepts mentioned above. Then, the resulting conceptual framework is applied to the Italian student movements. In the conclusion, benefits and challenges in the use of such framework are considered and lines of inquiry on current movements are suggested.
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Which elements do the Arab Spring, the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street have in common? How do they differ? What do they share with social movements of the past? This book discusses the recent wave of global mobilisations from an... more
Which elements do the Arab Spring, the Indignados and Occupy Wall Street have in common? How do they differ? What do they share with social movements of the past?
This book discusses the recent wave of global mobilisations from an unusual angle, explaining what aspects of protests spread from one country to another, how this happened, and why diffusion occurred in certain contexts but not in others. In doing this, the book casts light on the more general mechanisms of protest diffusion in contemporary societies, explaining how mobilisations travel from one country to another and, also, from past to present times.
Bridging different fields of the social sciences, and covering a broad range of empirical cases, this book develops new theoretical perspectives.
This book discusses the recent wave of global mobilisations from an unusual angle, explaining what aspects of protests spread from one country to another, how this happened, and why diffusion occurred in certain contexts but not in others. In doing this, the book casts light on the more general mechanisms of protest diffusion in contemporary societies, explaining how mobilisations travel from one country to another and, also, from past to present times.
Bridging different fields of the social sciences, and covering a broad range of empirical cases, this book develops new theoretical perspectives.
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This volume of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change highlights the importance of visuals in the current study of social movements. It is indispensable reading as it introduces new analytical concepts and methodological... more
This volume of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change highlights the importance of visuals in the current study of social movements. It is indispensable reading as it introduces new analytical concepts and methodological frameworks for understanding visuals in social movements; combining cultural and political analysis in a fresh, unique and interdisciplinary way. The articles featured in this special issue examine visual expressions of social movements through case studies from across the globe; including: injustice symbols in the Egyptian uprising; contested images from anti-surveillance protests in Germany; gendered visualization of local activism; commemorative videos of activists in recent European protests; and images used in Australian movements against abortion. In the open section of the volume articles examine the work of renowned political science scholar Charles Tilly, and discuss classic concepts in social movement studies. Firstly, considering the concept of repertoire of contention in order to understand the use of distinct contentious performances in Latin America. Secondly, analyzing the role of storytelling in the construction of trust and blame in social movements.
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Over the past year, international and national media have been full of stories about protest movements and tumultuous social upheaval from Tunisia to California. But scholars have not yet fully addressed the connection between these... more
Over the past year, international and national media have been full of stories about protest movements and tumultuous social upheaval from Tunisia to California. But scholars have not yet fully addressed the connection between these movements and the media and communication channels through which their messages spread. Correcting that imbalance, Mediation and Protest Movements explores the nature of the relationship between protest movements, media representation, and communication strategies and tactics.
By covering online and offline contexts, as well as mainstream and alternative media, Mediation and Protest Movements bridges the gap between social-movement theory and media and communication studies, making this an important text for students and scholars of the media and social change"""
By covering online and offline contexts, as well as mainstream and alternative media, Mediation and Protest Movements bridges the gap between social-movement theory and media and communication studies, making this an important text for students and scholars of the media and social change"""
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How do precarious workers employed in call-centres, universities, the fashion industry and many other labour markets organise, struggle and communicate to become recognised, influential political subjects? "Media Practices and Protest... more
How do precarious workers employed in call-centres, universities, the fashion industry and many other labour markets organise, struggle and communicate to become recognised, influential political subjects? "Media Practices and Protest Politics; How Precarious Workers Mobilise" reveals the process by which individuals at the margins of the labour market and excluded from the welfare state communicate and struggle outside the realm of institutional politics to gain recognition in the political sphere.
In this important and thought provoking work Alice Mattoni suggests an all-encompassing approach to understanding grassroots political communication in contemporary societies. Using original examples from precarious workers mobilizations in Italy she explores a range of activist media practices and compares different categories of media technologies, organizations and outlets from the printed press to web application and from mainstream to alternative media.
Explaining how activists perceive and understand the media environment in which they are embedded the book discusses how they must interact with a diverse range of media professionals and technologies and considers how mainstream, radical left-wing and alternative media represent protests. Media Practices and Protest Politics offers important insights for understanding mechanisms and patterns of visibility in struggles for recognition and redistribution in post-democratic
Contents: Preface; Introduction; Theoretical reflections on the study of grassroots political communication; The discursive context and contentious field of precarity in Italy; The construction of precarious subjects in mobilisations against precarity; Reflections in the mirror: media knowledge practices; Surfing media diversity: relational media practices; The construction of public identities: media representations of protest; Conclusions: the circuit of grassroots political communication; Methodological appendix; Bibliography; Index.societies and provides a valuable contribution to the field of political communication and social movement studies.
In this important and thought provoking work Alice Mattoni suggests an all-encompassing approach to understanding grassroots political communication in contemporary societies. Using original examples from precarious workers mobilizations in Italy she explores a range of activist media practices and compares different categories of media technologies, organizations and outlets from the printed press to web application and from mainstream to alternative media.
Explaining how activists perceive and understand the media environment in which they are embedded the book discusses how they must interact with a diverse range of media professionals and technologies and considers how mainstream, radical left-wing and alternative media represent protests. Media Practices and Protest Politics offers important insights for understanding mechanisms and patterns of visibility in struggles for recognition and redistribution in post-democratic
Contents: Preface; Introduction; Theoretical reflections on the study of grassroots political communication; The discursive context and contentious field of precarity in Italy; The construction of precarious subjects in mobilisations against precarity; Reflections in the mirror: media knowledge practices; Surfing media diversity: relational media practices; The construction of public identities: media representations of protest; Conclusions: the circuit of grassroots political communication; Methodological appendix; Bibliography; Index.societies and provides a valuable contribution to the field of political communication and social movement studies.
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" Il libro racconta e analizza le mobilitazioni che hanno attraversato il mondo universitario tra il 2008 e il 2009 e individua, più in generale, i caratteri dei nuovi conflitti nell'istruzione superiore. Le mobilitazioni riprendono la... more
" Il libro racconta e analizza le mobilitazioni che hanno attraversato il mondo universitario tra il 2008 e il 2009 e individua, più in generale, i caratteri dei nuovi conflitti nell'istruzione superiore. Le mobilitazioni riprendono la tradizione dell'attivismo studentesco e si svolgono in un contesto di relativa disaffezione per la politica tradizionale e istituzionale, soprattutto da parte delle generazioni più giovani. Allo stesso tempo, vedono la partecipazione di attori che si definiscono "precari" e che connettono la loro protesta alle più ampie trasformazioni economiche in atto in Italia e all'estero.
Quali sono le ragioni e le motivazioni che hanno spinto tali attori a mobilitarsi con questa ampiezza? E che rappresentazioni hanno costruito in merito alla loro lotta e ai rapporti con la politica? Perché questa lotta è in seguito scemata e che forme ha assunto? Le ricerche e le analisi qui contenute provano a rispondere a queste domande, cercando di mettere in relazione l'ultima grande protesta studentesca italiana con i cambiamenti che stanno investendo la società. Non sono risposte date dall'esterno, ma da soggetti che hanno vissuto la protesta, ne condividono le ragioni e utilizzano gli strumenti delle scienze sociali per analizzare e auto-analizzare i processi di attivazione.
Il libro è strutturato in due parti. La prima mantiene lo sguardo a un livello nazionale. Dopo una prefazione storica sulle mobilitazioni studentesche in Italia, ci si interroga sulle dinamiche evolutive dell'Onda. A queste riflessioni si accompagna un approfondimento relativo ai metodi dell'auto-inchiesta utilizzata per due studi di caso, discutendone le principali caratteristiche alla luce delle recenti trasformazioni degli attori mobilitati nelle società italiane. La seconda parte analizza le ricerche prodotte sulle mobilitazioni dell'Onda in diverse città d'Italia: Catania, Milano, Roma e Lecce. Sono presentate inoltre alcune linee di interpretazione teorica in relazione agli studi di caso, sottolineando le specificità di una mobilitazione che coinvolge quegli attori che per mestiere producono conoscenza e indagando il loro rapporto con la politica. "
Quali sono le ragioni e le motivazioni che hanno spinto tali attori a mobilitarsi con questa ampiezza? E che rappresentazioni hanno costruito in merito alla loro lotta e ai rapporti con la politica? Perché questa lotta è in seguito scemata e che forme ha assunto? Le ricerche e le analisi qui contenute provano a rispondere a queste domande, cercando di mettere in relazione l'ultima grande protesta studentesca italiana con i cambiamenti che stanno investendo la società. Non sono risposte date dall'esterno, ma da soggetti che hanno vissuto la protesta, ne condividono le ragioni e utilizzano gli strumenti delle scienze sociali per analizzare e auto-analizzare i processi di attivazione.
Il libro è strutturato in due parti. La prima mantiene lo sguardo a un livello nazionale. Dopo una prefazione storica sulle mobilitazioni studentesche in Italia, ci si interroga sulle dinamiche evolutive dell'Onda. A queste riflessioni si accompagna un approfondimento relativo ai metodi dell'auto-inchiesta utilizzata per due studi di caso, discutendone le principali caratteristiche alla luce delle recenti trasformazioni degli attori mobilitati nelle società italiane. La seconda parte analizza le ricerche prodotte sulle mobilitazioni dell'Onda in diverse città d'Italia: Catania, Milano, Roma e Lecce. Sono presentate inoltre alcune linee di interpretazione teorica in relazione agli studi di caso, sottolineando le specificità di una mobilitazione che coinvolge quegli attori che per mestiere producono conoscenza e indagando il loro rapporto con la politica. "
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After the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations in the USA and other countries across the world, many scholars emphasized the importance of protest camps and social media platforms for these protests. However, what has not been systematically... more
After the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations in the USA and other countries across the world, many scholars emphasized the importance of protest camps and social media platforms for these protests. However, what has not been systematically explored is how the two are intertwined. Exploring the interconnections between camps and platforms, this chapter shows how a fluid conception of spatiality emerged in the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations, which had vital implications for the participation patterns of activists. The chapter uses offline and online ethnographic data obtained through participant observation of Occupy Pittsburgh to reflect on three aspects. First, it reconstructs the spatial layers that characterize the infrastructure of participation in Occupy Pittsburgh. Then, it analyses the sanctioned modes of participation. Finally, it discusses the challenges faced by activists when one spatial layer of mobilization collided with participation at another layer. Beyond producing contextual knowledge on Occupy Pittsburgh, the chapter contributes to the current debate on how social media and other digital tools for communication are shaping the spatial dimension of contemporary activism.
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The chapter draws on qualitative interviews with activists and other types of qualitative materials to discuss the emergence of different types of relationship between confederate trade unions and other collective actors mobilizing in the... more
The chapter draws on qualitative interviews with activists and other types of qualitative materials to discuss the emergence of different types of relationship between confederate trade unions and other collective actors mobilizing in the contentious field related to precarity in Italy, i.e. social movement organizations and grassroots groups of precarious workers. Following changes in the legislative and economic contexts from a cross-time perspective, the chapter analyze the struggles of precarious workers from late in the 1990s to early in the 2010s, discerning different patterns of conflict, competition and collaboration that are characteristic of the ways in which confederate trade unions interact with social movement actors in the realm of labor. Most importantly, the experiences analyzed in the chapter cast light on the agency assumed by grassroots groups of precarious workers vis-à-vis the confederate unions, especially when it came to the representation of interests in public and at the political level.
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This chapter addresses how Italian precarious workers mobilized and elaborated different frames about themselves and their living and working conditions in five mobilizations against precarity that occurred in the early 2000s. The... more
This chapter addresses how Italian precarious workers mobilized and elaborated different frames
about themselves and their living and working conditions in five mobilizations against precarity that occurred in the early 2000s. The chapter shows how the deep cleavages related to the way in which precarity affected their working and living conditions also had an impact at the symbolic level of discourse formation. The frames that emerged during the five relevant mobilizations, indeed, pointed out how different social, economic, and political conditions amongst precarious workers might end up fostering diverse forms of framing precarity and defining precarious workers. The chapter is organized as follows. The first section introduces frame analysis, the method employed to investigate the construction of precarious workers’ public identities. The second section compares the five case studies along three analytical categories: diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing. The conclusions summarize and discuss the main results of the analysis.
about themselves and their living and working conditions in five mobilizations against precarity that occurred in the early 2000s. The chapter shows how the deep cleavages related to the way in which precarity affected their working and living conditions also had an impact at the symbolic level of discourse formation. The frames that emerged during the five relevant mobilizations, indeed, pointed out how different social, economic, and political conditions amongst precarious workers might end up fostering diverse forms of framing precarity and defining precarious workers. The chapter is organized as follows. The first section introduces frame analysis, the method employed to investigate the construction of precarious workers’ public identities. The second section compares the five case studies along three analytical categories: diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing. The conclusions summarize and discuss the main results of the analysis.
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Visual forms in which movements express themselves matter and movements are pivotally perceived through vision. However, only in the past decades have seen a lively debate on visuals in many disciplines in the field of humanities and,... more
Visual forms in which movements express themselves matter and movements are pivotally perceived through vision. However, only in the past decades have seen a lively debate on visuals in many disciplines in the field of humanities and, also, in the social sciences that has also started to echo in the field of social movements. After a brief literature review on visuals in such fields of research, this chapter addresses images, and other visual artifacts, in social movements from a twofold perspective able to highlights different foci in the visual analysis of social movements. First, the performative dimension of social movements becoming visible, by focusing on collective practices that are developed to express and represent a movement’s cause. Second, visual aspects in the mediatization of social movements to underline the fact that visualization is largely dependent on different kinds of media technologies. Conclusions considers some relevant lines of investigation that might deepen our understanding of both social movements and the images they are associated with.
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In this chapter we explore early precarious workers’ mobilizations in two southern European countries, Italy and Greece, so as to detail how marginalized categories of workers engage in protest. In doing so, we show how innovative forms... more
In this chapter we explore early precarious workers’ mobilizations in two southern European countries, Italy and Greece, so as to detail how marginalized categories of workers engage in protest. In doing so, we show how innovative forms of workers’ participation have emerged in recent years outside the realm of traditional labor organizations. More specifically, this chapter presents a cross-national comparative analysis centered on collective identification processes and how they overlapped with different dimensions of protest. We reconstruct the marginality of precarious workers in the political, legislative and discoursive arena, showing the significant differences between the two national structural contexts in which protests took place. In particular, we show that the discursive level presented important differences between the two countries. In Italy, the discourse on flexibility was dominant and had an overall positive connotation in the public debate. In Greece however, the discourse on flexibility was marginal and had an overarching negative connotation in the public debate. This structural difference was relevant for the role that the symbolic level of protests had in the two countries, especially with regard to the organizational patterns, the forms of protest and the field of contention linked to Italian and Greek mobilizations to fight precarity.
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Grounded theory is an encompassing research strategy that is widely used in the social sciences, but still disregarded in social movement studies where it received scarce if any attention. The chapter starts from empirical research based... more
Grounded theory is an encompassing research strategy that is widely used in the social sciences, but still disregarded in social movement studies where it received scarce if any attention. The chapter starts from empirical research based on grounded theory to illustrate its potentials for scholars interested in studying grassroots contentious politics. In particular, it shows that two foundational traits of grounded theory - the attention to meanings produced by social actors paired with systematic and comparative coding procedures – render this research strategy suitable for empirical investigations on perceptions, identities, emotions and, more in general, cultural dimensions of social movements. The chapter first briefly presents some general traits of grounded theory, including the use of sensitizing concepts and the features characterizing the constructivist approach to this research strategy. It will then discuss data collection and data analysis in grounded theory, casting light on the peculiar coding procedures that characterize this research strategy. Conclusions summarize the main features of grounded theory to clarify in which cases this research strategy can be fruitfully employed to investigate social movements.
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This article deals with the use of ICTs in national and transnational mobilizations. The case study under investigation is the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP) against precarity, which occurred at both the national and transnational level. The... more
This article deals with the use of ICTs in national and transnational mobilizations. The case study under investigation is the Euro Mayday Parade (EMP) against precarity, which occurred at both the national and transnational level. The article focuses on three aspects of social movement activities. First, organizational processes in which ICTs are used at both the national and transnational level of the EMP in combination with face-to-face interactions, which play an important role in sustaining protest planning. Second, identification processes in which ICTs have a more important impact at the transnational level than at the national level of the EMP. Third, ICTs are not only seen as opportunities but also as challenges that activist groups involved in the EMP had to deal with in the preparation of the EMP. In presenting these results, the article suggests that a comparison between the national and transnational level of the same protest campaign could highlight new aspects in the use of ICTs, which deserve further investigation.
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Social movements are (a) mostly informal networks of interaction, based on (b) shared beliefs and solidarity, mobilized around (c) contentious themes through (d) the frequent use of various forms of protest. Communication assumes a... more
Social movements are (a) mostly informal networks of interaction, based on (b) shared beliefs and solidarity, mobilized around (c) contentious themes through (d) the frequent use of various forms of protest. Communication assumes a central role in the articulation of each of these definitional aspects. Early studies on the topic underlined the weak position of social movements with regard to mass media, on the one hand, and the role of movement-near media as a space of alternative communication, on the other hand. Recent developments in the literature underline the agency of social movements in the making of political communication flows, positioning them in a multilayered media environment. At the same time, research has flourished on the role of Internet tools and web platforms in the strategic and expressive activities of social movements. Future research would benefit from cross-media, cross-time and cross-country comparisons on the use of media in social movements
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When looking at journalism from a social movement perspective, there are two possible viewpoints. On the one side, the journalistic field, its rules and values, routines and practices, is external to the social movement milieu. On the... more
When looking at journalism from a social movement perspective, there are two possible viewpoints. On the one side, the journalistic field, its rules and values, routines and practices, is external to the social movement milieu. On the other side, the very notion of journalism has always intertwined with grassroots communities of activists that rethink and reshape journalistic practices from a bottom-up perspective. In the first case, scholars investigate the interactions between social movements and journalism at large, where journalism denotes mainstream journalistic practices. In the second case, conversely, scholars research the development of so-called alternative and grassroots journalistic practices within activist communities and networks.
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Media activism can be understood in three different manners, going from broad to narrower interpretations: activism through the media, activism in the media, activism about the media.
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The history of social movements developed in parallel to technological changes in societies. From the invention of the press to the diffusion of television, communication technologies gave social movements new opportunities of expression... more
The history of social movements developed in parallel to technological changes in societies. From the invention of the press to the diffusion of television, communication technologies gave social movements new opportunities of expression and organization. Frequently, therefore, social movements met, appropriated and reshaped technological devices and supports that were at the same time opportunities and challenges for grassroots political participation. Technology intertwines with social movements at different levels. At the instrumental level, technology has an impact on mobilizing structures, organizational patterns, and protest activities of social movements. At the symbolic level, social movements have an impact on discourses about technologies and their role in societies, often including new technological visions in alternative systems of meanings. Finally, at the material level, social movements have an impact on technological supports and devices, in that activist technical knowledge and competencies lead to alternative and creative use of technology.
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The aim of this course is to explore the Italian political system and political parties as well as some politics related phenomena, such as the Italian media system, the Italian organized crime and the Italian unconventional political... more
The aim of this course is to explore the Italian political system and political parties as well as some politics related phenomena, such as the Italian media system, the Italian organized crime and the Italian unconventional political actors and informal political participation. Along the semester, the course is divided into three parts. The introductory lectures analyze the process of state-building in Italy and the consolidation of democracy in the early post-World War Two years. The focus will be on the rise and consolidation of mass political parties (Christian Democratic Party and Communist Party), the role of Italian unconventional political actors and the season of political terrorism. The second part of the course explains the current Italian political system. Starting from the Italian Constitution, lectures deal with the Italian government, parliament and the president; the judiciary power; the electoral system and the media system. The third part discusses the political upheavals that have characterized Italy since the early 1990s. Starting from the “Tangentopoli” political scandal, the remaining lectures deal with the origins and developments of the current Italian party system, the role of organized crime in contemporary Italy and the interaction between Italy and the European Union. The lecture program will also include slots for the showing of videos dealing with aspects of contemporary Italian government, politics, and issues in government and society.
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Registration is now open for the first event of the Social Movements and Media Technologies: Present Challenges and Future Developments Seminar Series.The Seminar Series is jointly organised by the Centre for Global Media and Democracy... more
Registration is now open for the first event of the Social Movements and Media Technologies: Present Challenges and Future Developments Seminar Series.The Seminar Series is jointly organised by the Centre for Global Media and Democracy (CGMD) at Goldsmiths University of London and the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS), European University Institute Florence.
The aim of the series, which will take place in 2015 and 2016 for a total of six seminars, is to tackle and critically understand one of the crucial societal changes of our times: the relationship between political participation and media technologies.
The first seminar MOBILISATIONS, CHANGING PROTEST CULTURES AND WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES will be held at
Centre for Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths University of London, UK – 14th and 15th of May, 2015 (Professor Stuart Hall Building, LG02 and 314)
This first workshop will look at contemporary ‘protest cultures’ and explore the changing relationship between political participation and media technologies in the age of social media by considering three different dimensions a) organisation b) political imaginations c) lived experience. Scholars and activists will be invited to discuss this relationship by considering culturally and context specific examples. The aim of this workshop is to overcome much of the ethnocentric bias, which can be found in current research, to enable processes of meaningful comparison and to develop a critical and culturally sensitive approach to the analysis of Web 2.0 and social movements.
ALL WELCOMED. This is a free event for anyone interested. However, spaces are limited so make sure that you register your interest by writing to v.barassi@gold.ac.uk by the 8th of May, 2015.
The aim of the series, which will take place in 2015 and 2016 for a total of six seminars, is to tackle and critically understand one of the crucial societal changes of our times: the relationship between political participation and media technologies.
The first seminar MOBILISATIONS, CHANGING PROTEST CULTURES AND WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES will be held at
Centre for Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths University of London, UK – 14th and 15th of May, 2015 (Professor Stuart Hall Building, LG02 and 314)
This first workshop will look at contemporary ‘protest cultures’ and explore the changing relationship between political participation and media technologies in the age of social media by considering three different dimensions a) organisation b) political imaginations c) lived experience. Scholars and activists will be invited to discuss this relationship by considering culturally and context specific examples. The aim of this workshop is to overcome much of the ethnocentric bias, which can be found in current research, to enable processes of meaningful comparison and to develop a critical and culturally sensitive approach to the analysis of Web 2.0 and social movements.
ALL WELCOMED. This is a free event for anyone interested. However, spaces are limited so make sure that you register your interest by writing to v.barassi@gold.ac.uk by the 8th of May, 2015.
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The Call for Application is now open for the Second Edition of the Summer School on Methods for the Study of Political Participation and Mobilization, organized by the ECPR Standing Group on Participation and Mobilization and the Centre... more
The Call for Application is now open for the Second Edition of the Summer School on Methods for the Study of Political Participation and Mobilization, organized by the ECPR Standing Group on Participation and Mobilization and the Centre on Social Movement Studies (Scuola Normale Superiore and European University Institute).
The Summer School will take place at the Scuola Normale Superiore, in Florence, from the 14th to the 25th of September 2015. Participants will focus on how to analyze present and past forms of grassroots participation activated by social movement and civil society actors at the local, regional and transnational level.
More in general, the Summer School aims at disseminating knowledge on how to investigate processes and mechanisms that sustain the active citizens' participation to and mobilization in the realm of politics. Grassroots participation and radical democracy have been at the center of the public and political debate from 2008 onward, when a new wave of contention crossed the entire world: from protests in Iceland to those in the MENA region, Southern Europe, North America and Latin America. The emergence of new protest movements requires scholars to reflect on the research strategies and methodologies that are employed to study grassroots participation and radical democracy. Although there is a considerable amount of research done on how social movements and civil society actors mobilize, specialized literature on how to actually investigate this phenomena is rare, although increasingly necessary. The Summer School addresses this gap discussing how to apply the most common methods in the social sciences to investigate political participation and mobilization.
For more information about the application procedure, participation fees and academic programme, please see the Summer School website and/or contact the Summer School organizing committee at pamsummerschool[@]gmail.com
The Summer School will take place at the Scuola Normale Superiore, in Florence, from the 14th to the 25th of September 2015. Participants will focus on how to analyze present and past forms of grassroots participation activated by social movement and civil society actors at the local, regional and transnational level.
More in general, the Summer School aims at disseminating knowledge on how to investigate processes and mechanisms that sustain the active citizens' participation to and mobilization in the realm of politics. Grassroots participation and radical democracy have been at the center of the public and political debate from 2008 onward, when a new wave of contention crossed the entire world: from protests in Iceland to those in the MENA region, Southern Europe, North America and Latin America. The emergence of new protest movements requires scholars to reflect on the research strategies and methodologies that are employed to study grassroots participation and radical democracy. Although there is a considerable amount of research done on how social movements and civil society actors mobilize, specialized literature on how to actually investigate this phenomena is rare, although increasingly necessary. The Summer School addresses this gap discussing how to apply the most common methods in the social sciences to investigate political participation and mobilization.
For more information about the application procedure, participation fees and academic programme, please see the Summer School website and/or contact the Summer School organizing committee at pamsummerschool[@]gmail.com