Articles, Chapters, Papers by Rossella Rega
Contemporary Italian Politics , 2023
This study investigates Italian citizens’ news diets during the 2019 European election and examin... more This study investigates Italian citizens’ news diets during the 2019 European election and examines the relationship between these diets and citizens’ attitudes to three central political issues: trust in the EU, prejudice towards migrants and populist attitudes. Combining a self-report survey with passive data recording real news consumption, the study identified three main user profiles. It verified that News Avoiders (meagre news diets) associate with distrust in the EU, anti-immigrant positions and populist attitudes; News Seekers (cross-media and in-depth information) align with open-minded attitudes towards Europe and immigration; the TV-News Centric (almost single-channel news) identify with moderate political attitudes.
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Social Media + Society, 2023
Incivility in online political discussion represents one of the most widely debated issues among ... more Incivility in online political discussion represents one of the most widely debated issues among scholars. Much research focuses on the incivility disseminated by political elites on social media, paying less attention to the user incivility that spreads as a “bottom-up” reaction to politicians’ posts. To fill this gap, the article focuses on user comments on the Facebook pages of parliamentary candidates in the run-up to the Italian general election of 2018. Distinguishing between intolerant and impolite comments, we observed that the extent of the former in user discussions is limited, and linked to highly sensitive issues and radical right-wing populist communities. This would seem to counter the view that all political debate on social media is inherently toxic and harmful to democratic and deliberative processes. Impoliteness, on the contrary, is adopted by users to express mutual hostility and seems particularly based on feelings of partisanship, so that the issues disappear completely from the discussion and forms of participation “against the other” are activated.
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Social Media + Society, 2022
Incivility in public discourse is a central concern for scholars and citizens alike. However, the... more Incivility in public discourse is a central concern for scholars and citizens alike. However, the definitions of the concept offered by scholars are dissimilar and difficult to compare. This research, which adopts an approach based on citizens' perceptions of incivility, addresses this issue by empirically testing a three-dimensional model of political incivility. The findings of a survey of 797 students to track differences in perceptions of specific types of uncivil speech show that political incivility consists of a three-dimensional concept, that is, incivility as "impoliteness," as "individual delegitimization," and as "institutional delegitimization." Future studies can use this model to corroborate these results and verify whether this composition of the concept holds up in other contexts.
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Comunicazione Politica, 2021
The article analyses the Facebook news coverage of a critical moment in the management of the Cov... more The article analyses the Facebook news coverage of a critical moment in the management of the Covid-19 emergency in Italy, such as the regularisation of immigrant workers. Through mixed methods and a double-level approach based on the journalistic discourse (top-down)
and the grassroots responses (bottom-up), the study has empirically investigated in which way the main national news organisations contributed to feed a polarised and uncivil debate.
The news frame analysis on the articles shared on Facebook has shown a plurality of interpretations about the issue (regularisation as emergency, regularisation as problem, political conflict, and solidarity). In comparison to the other outlets, partisan media not only have privileged a problematic and conflictual representation, but also adopted different devices of outrage discourse, thus developing a highly polarised news coverage. The analysis of the users’ comments reinforced the impression that right-wing newspapers have contributed to amplifying negative emotions and harsh attacks towards sensitive targets. Overall, the combination of the three levels of investigation (on news frames, uncivil language devices and users’ comments) gives a clear picture about the relationship between the partisanship of news media and the polarisation of the audience as well as their mutual influence in accordance with the platform mechanisms
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Success and Failure in News Media Performance: Comparative Analysis in The Media for Democracy Monitor 2021, 2022
Based on evidence from the 18 countries included in the 2021 Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM), t... more Based on evidence from the 18 countries included in the 2021 Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM), this chapter provides the first comparative analysis of whether and how the issue of online misinformation is being interpreted and dealt with in newsrooms around the world. We analyse to which degree news media view online misinformation as a challenge that needs addressing and what measures they take to avoid relaying online misinformation. Moreover, we study how news media form part of broader societal and regulatory initiatives to counter misinformation.
The chapter identifies different national approaches to the news media’s ways of addressing online misinformation and discusses potential future avenues for research and regulatory action.
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Contemporary Politics, Communication, and the Impact on Democracy, Chapter 5, 2022
Integration between digital platforms and news organizations has produced a substantial platformi... more Integration between digital platforms and news organizations has produced a substantial platformization of news. This phenomenon has been accompanied by a growing political polarization of journalistic content, exacerbated in Italy by the high level of partisanship that traditionally characterizes the national media. This chapter outlines one part of a wider study on the debate about the regularization of migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, based on mixed methods and a two-level analytical approach, considers articles and posts published on Facebook by 12 different news providers (top-down) along with users' comments on this content (bottom-up). The authors here present the investigation into the coverage of migrant worker regularization by discussing the findings of the evaluative assertion and news frame analyses carried out on the selected articles and posts. Using this multidimensional approach, the study highlights the persistent nature of polarization within a highly fragmented public sphere.
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Central European Journal of Communication, 2021
The article investigates media organizations' strategies to adapt to the new media ecology in whi... more The article investigates media organizations' strategies to adapt to the new media ecology in which Twitter is renewing traditional news-production routines. Two main strategies are identified: a traditional approach aimed at one-way news dissemination, and a journalistic model that recasts the relationship with the audience and uses Twitter as a community-building tool. It has been assumed that media outlets' endeavors to gain centrality in the information system are associated with their ability in using the appropriate communication tools of Twitter and the implementation of strategies based on interaction with users. Based on a comparative analysis of Twitter uses by newspapers in 31 countries, the study shows that the ability to manage the structural elements of the platform is widespread among media organizations. Concurrently, the relational strategy, i.e. the investment in community building, although less widespread, is present in many countries and leads to an increased level of user involvement.
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THE COMMUNICATION REVIEW, 2021
The study addresses central issues in contemporary politics in response to growing concern about ... more The study addresses central issues in contemporary politics in response to growing concern about the impoverishment of political discourse that has become increasingly uncivil. In particular it analhyzes citizens’ reactions to leaders’ uncivil posts on Facebook during the 2018 Italian General Election, by adopting a theoretical-operational model based on a dual approach (top down – bottom up) that examines the forms of adverse communication used by politicians online, and the consequences of these forms on users’ discussion (analyzing both ranking behaviors and users’ comments).
Political incivility is operationalized as a multidimensional concept and specific types are proposed, starting from violations of norms of politeness (interpersonal-level) and proceeding to violation of public norms of civility (public-level). Results show that leaders’ use of uncivil messages trigger greater online participation, thus increasing the visibility of their posts. However, the emotional excitement elicited by these triggering forms of elite communication encourage antagonistic and rude behaviors among users, leading to an increase in uncivil comments and thus jeopardizing the quality of online discussion. Overall, it emerges that incivility combined with divisive issues can be thought of as a tool of communication used strategically by politicians to mobilize voters and to strengthen their political affiliation.
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Mediascapes Journal, 2020
The phenomenon of hate speech has become a predominant component of public debate and a point of ... more The phenomenon of hate speech has become a predominant component of public debate and a point of great interest in academic research. Plenty of studies investigating the various expressions of hate speech, including online hate speech, have been conducted. Despite the efforts made, however, the outlines of this phenomenon remain extremely uncertain. In fact, limitations in the intention to reduce hate speech to a purely legal approach is emerging. Even though the latter was originally the dominant approach, it appears to be inadequate for capturing a fluid and ever-changing phenomenon such as the hate speech today. Despite the similarities with offline hatred, online hatred has widened to include the most diverse expressions, messages, and hostility practices, which can be either organized or individual, and often implicit. All these features proper of the online hate speech make it difficult to establish, according to the specific circumstances, whether these are forms openly aimed at inciting hatred and violence against target groups likely to harm victims. Nonetheless, distinguishing the different roles of the actors involved into the spread of hate speech (e.g. perpetrators of online speech, more or less aware spreaders of hate, victims) can be a source of uncertainty. Building on this foundation, the article aims to investigate hate speech of today’s world through a multidimensional framework fit into the context of hybrid media. Moving from Lasswell (1948)’s Communication Model, this contribution illustrates the importance of observing all the dimensions involved in hate speech, including the communicator, the message, the receiver, considering as well the digital media’s context and the related specific properties, and the consequences arising from the interaction between the different dimensions. The idea behind this proposal is that in order to understand both mechanisms and hallmarks of ordinary online hate practices, it is necessary to move away from specific and fragmented approaches. These, indeed, (selectively) analyse specific portions of the phenomenon while losing sight of other dimensions’ roles and their action and feedback relations. The transformative nature of hate speech requires the adoption of an innovative approach, which cannot be limited to the compilation of a list of examples and cases to be banned. On the contrary, it should aim for tuning in to cultural and digital practices used by users in the production of hate speech. Because, if it is true that online hate does not differ from hate tout court, it is also true that progressive communicative shifts might occur and lead to the transformation of forms of discrimination into something apparently harmless such as “just funny stuff”.
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Rivista di Studi Politici, 2019
The relationship between politicians and citizens is essentially mediated by languages. Above all... more The relationship between politicians and citizens is essentially mediated by languages. Above all, citizens experience the languages of politics and the styles and forms of communication used by political actors. But given the emergence of languages based on obscenity, sexism and mutual insults, what remains of political communication? The dissemination of hostile messages seems to find fertile ground in social media in particular, marked by the lack of gatekeepers, direct interaction with followers, and the logic of “virality”. Within these platforms, the worsening of political rhetoric has legitimized those forms of communication considered by literature as examples of uncivil rhetoric (defamation, delegitimization of opponents, sarcasm, incendiary phrases, insults).
By comparing different lines of research (negative campaigning, political incivility, emotional campaigning), this paper critically examines literature on negativity in politics, and introduces new perspectives aimed at analyzing the use of conflict rhetoric by political representatives.
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Problemi dell'Informazione, 2020
This study focuses on ‘Macerata’ news-story (a series of events triggered by the shooting of immi... more This study focuses on ‘Macerata’ news-story (a series of events triggered by the shooting of immigrants), which took place a few weeks before the Italian General election, and disrupted and influenced the public agenda. The article examines the agenda building and framing processes, and their connection with the different actors of the public sphere through a cross-media perspective. Outcomes show how these processes are the result of the competition/cooperation dynamics between traditional and social media. Furthermore, in conjunction with electoral campaign or media events capable of catalyzing public attention (i.e. Macerata), the convergence between the agendas becomes remarkably evident.
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PROCEEDINGS of the 1st International Conference of the Journal Scuola Democratica EDUCATION AND POST-DEMOCRACY , 2019
1. When hate meets the web
In the climate of generalized hatred that we experience daily, by watc... more 1. When hate meets the web
In the climate of generalized hatred that we experience daily, by watching the news or talk shows, reading online newspapers, or scrolling our Facebook timelines, it is essential to question educational programs’ actual ability to oppose these shifts. Most importantly, we must start rethinking them, especially given the negative consequences of people’s exposure to hostility, rudeness or incivility, both in online and offline spaces. Indeed, as shown by several studies, they amplify the audiences' negative emotions, weaken trust in institutions, increase cynicism and encourage self-defence behaviors, often leading to social isolation. When it comes to young people, who are more fragile and less equipped than other population groups, such risks are even more real. Many countries in Europe have undertaken to implement online device projects aimed at tracking down and detecting violent content, and banning them from social media, in order to stem the growth of hate speech on digital platforms.
However, a purely censored approach does not obviously get to the root of the problem. We must question why many users see hate speech or extreme speech as normal, or even desirable; why they have such a large following and generate such online sharing and dissemination mechanisms. In this regard, we must go beyond a purely punitive logic, and pay attention to the granularity of those everyday online practices underlying contemporary digital cultures. This pilot study aims to examine the experiences of young people while surfing the web, and how they interpret these different kinds of hostile behavior on social media or online chats. In this respect, according to Toniolo Institute (2018), 63% of young people between the ages of 18 and 34 have got carried away by online heated discussions and have deliberately used offensive content in social media discussions, in 66% of cases. These data show that violent discourse, harassment practices and bullying are becoming increasingly popular, even among young people. Online resources can further fuel this hostility through exclusionary, discriminatory and derisive conducts, which can foster group identification by being often associated with forms of collective entertainment. Indeed, references to looser social conventions, which are typical of these environments, as well as the possibility to stay anonymous, can accentuate a sense of ‘deindividuation’. According to this, people perceive their individual identity as less important than the group identity, consequently disinhibiting their behavior. Also, the compulsive use of
smartphones and the affordances of social network platforms contribute to this disinhibition effect, by exacerbating the collapse of spatial-temporal and social contexts, and increasingly blurring the boundaries between public and private. Therefore, on the one hand the socio-technological aspects of new media appear to significantly affect these phenomena; on the other, violent behavior online (including direct activities and sharing violent content) clearly appear as practices that are constitutive of identity and political subjectivity. Within this scenario, also political representatives play a major role. Instead of committing to pacify public opinion, they seem much more interested in riding the wave of dissent, especially through their social accounts, by resorting to hate speech, mocking and bullying practices against opponents and others. Restraint and moderation, which once characterized traditional political rhetoric, have now given way to feelings of hostility and demonization of opponents, aiming to galvanize followers and to instigate anger and social discontent. Indeed, this sharp communication style is intended not just to increase political visibility, due to uncivil messages’ ability to engage users. It also bridges the gap with ordinary people, who can identify more easily with such practices and styles, rather than with complex and abstract theoretical-political arguments. Although the best example of this strategy is undoubtedly Trump's use of Twitter, there are some concrete examples in Italy as well, as shown by the social media campaigning for the 2018 general election. Starting from these premises, this work focuses on an important segment of society, consisting of young people who grew up with Internet, in order to analyze their relationship with violent and aggressive online communication, both by their peers and political representatives. The attention is focused on two phenomena that were distinctly studied in academia: cyberbullying by young people and the different forms of incivility by politicians. The goal is to examine the perceptions and meanings attributed by young people to the different types of hostile communication, by assessing the level of acceptability of each of them and its variations, depending on different contexts and actors (interpersonal; online interactions with institutional actors). In the following paragraphs, we will briefly explain the study, and discuss findings and implications.
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Media Education. Studi, Ricerche, Buone Pratiche, 2019
RETHINKING CYBERBULLING BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA AND HATE SPEECH. PRACTICES, HYBRIDIZATIONS AND RESEA... more RETHINKING CYBERBULLING BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA AND HATE SPEECH. PRACTICES, HYBRIDIZATIONS AND RESEARCH TREND
The article addresses issues in response to the concern about the growth of hate messages in online public debate which involves different actors including politicians. Focusing in particular on young people, it aims at examining cyberbullying within a broader framework, linking the bullying behavior to the growth of incivility in public discourse, especially on social media. The theoretical overview of incivility and cyberbullying shows areas of overlap, confirming the fact that these are not individual phenomena, but they affect the whole society. The article identifies trajectories of research, as well as useful interventions to counteract their pervasive spread.
Keywords
Cyberbullying, hate speech, incivility, social media, digital practices
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Comunicazione Politica, 2019
In the last decades, scholars have devoted increasing attention to uncivil discourse due to the p... more In the last decades, scholars have devoted increasing attention to uncivil discourse due to the pervasiveness of incivility in social media, and to the relevance of this topic because of its consequences in terms of public debate quality. However, the concept of incivility is not shared among scholars who often used incivility and impoliteness interchangeably or alternately, making difficult comparison of results. In the light of this considerations, this study proposes an empirical operationalization of the concept of incivility.
The analysis focuses on the uses of different forms of incivility by the principal Italian political leaders on their Facebook pages throughout eight weeks of 2018 electoral campaign (top-down incivility), and their consequences on users’ comments (bottom-up incivility). Results show that incivility occurs more often in association with polarized topics, such as the immigration issue. Furthermore, the exposure to uncivil discussion favors the increase of uncivil comments. Both impoliteness and incivility increase bottom-up uncivil discussion, perpetuating «the spectacle of incivility», and facilitating the decline of public sphere.
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Leader e temi tra incivility e polarizzazione in Bentivegna e Boccia Artieri (a cura di) "Niente di nuovo sul fronte mediale", Franco Angeli, 2019
Sebbene la campagna elettorale delle Politiche 2018 sia stata caratterizzata da una debolezza di ... more Sebbene la campagna elettorale delle Politiche 2018 sia stata caratterizzata da una debolezza di contenuti e proposte programmatiche, alcuni temi più polarizzati hanno avuto un ruolo centrale nella discussione politico-elettorale, diventando terreno di confronto e scontro tra i principali leader italiani. Nello specifico, quelli che hanno influenzato maggiormente l’agenda pubblica durante la campagna si sono imposti a seguito di alcuni eventi che hanno offerto ai competitors l’opportunità di intervenire nel dibattito pubblico, sfruttandone i risvolti per conferire attenzione alle proprie proposte. Innanzitutto i fatti di Macerata, con le varie manifestazioni e polemiche che ne sono seguite, ma anche gli scandali relativi ai candida-ti impresentabili, alla questione dei rifiuti in Campania e alle diverse in-chieste politico-giudiziarie emerse nei giorni precedenti al voto. Legati a queste vicende, i temi dell’immigrazione e della sicurezza, la polemica ideologica tra fascismo e antifascismo, la corruzione e il malaffare della classe politica sono tra quelli che più hanno infiammato il dibattito elettorale. Temi, dunque, fortemente politicizzati, su cui si è concentrata un’intensa attività di comunicazione dei leader, i quali, specialmente at-traverso i propri account sui social media, hanno utilizzato retoriche incivili al fine di galvanizzare i followers e conquistare visibilità nelle reti di discussione online e nei media mainstream. Già in altri studi è stato riscontrato che in relazione a issues più controverse e partisan non solo aumenta il ricorso all’incivility da parte dei comunicatori, ma si accresce anche la capacità di propagazione del messaggio che li contiene e il livello di copertura giornalistica. Nelle discussioni online, in particolare, la natura controversa di un tema, attirando opinioni polarizzate e irremovibili, favorisce la produzione di commenti incivili da parte degli utenti, compromettendo così il confronto e lo scambio informato sulle issues. Con l’obiettivo di approfondire queste dinamiche, il contributo analizza la comunicazione dei leader italiani su Facebook, il social network con il maggior numero di utenti in Italia (Reuters, 2018), durante la campagna per le elezioni politiche 2018 al fine di comprendere lo spazio che i temi polarizzati hanno avuto nelle loro attività di posting e la caratterizzazione di questi messaggi sul piano dell’incivility. Contemporaneamente, si analizzeranno le reazioni dei pubblici/utenti ai contenuti postati dai leader in termini di engagement e, più in generale, le conseguenze di questi mes-saggi per la qualità della discussione politica.
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The Lab's Quarterly 2018 / a. XX / n. 2 (aprile-giugno), 2018
The study focuses on the personalization strategies of political leaders on Twitter, in order to ... more The study focuses on the personalization strategies of political leaders on Twitter, in order to verify how the dimensions of personalization of
politics typical of television setting are adapted in the new digital habitat.
Following the selection of specific indicators the research analyses the
tweets produced by the main Italian leaders over a year and a half. The
multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) has identified three specific selfpersonalization strategies: (i) Professional Leader, (ii) Intimate Persona, (iii) Intimate Leader, which have been related with the average of the likes received. The results confirmed that the adoption of personalized strategies is now part of the leaders’ communicative preferences particularly through messages aimed at presenting their most intimate and personal side. At the same time, the research showed the users’ preferences for these strategies aimed at strengthening the sense (or illusion) of greater intimacy with the politician. From this perspective the study also allows to understand the meaning that arenas like Twitter offer to the process of “shortening the distances” between citizens and political representatives. In this regard, we point out that the transition from TV to social media further accentuates personalization, giving politicians entire control over their self-disclosure activities.
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NEWS MEDIA ON TWITTER. The bet on soft news. News marketing and journalism’s mar- ket-oriented tr... more NEWS MEDIA ON TWITTER. The bet on soft news. News marketing and journalism’s mar- ket-oriented transformation influence – in terms of content – news media inclination to- wards soft and entertainment news, in contrast to hard issues as politics and economics. This paper focuses on this topic, looking at which kind of content news media share on Twit- ter. Following the literature on this subject, the study deals with two theoretical concepts: news organisations’ communication model on Twitter; the balance between hard and soft content. On the latter issue, the article analyses relations between content shared on Twitter (hard vs soft news) and level of user engagement. The empirical investigation is based on the content analysis of 2.962 tweets from five different types of Italian news media. Results show that they tend to use Twitter adopting a one-way communication model, which lacks of interactivity with the audience. Besides particular features and differences among media outlets, such self-referential model is mainly characterized by soft and catching content. The platform’s users seem to welcome this news-softening trend in journalism. Indeed, they show higher engagement towards soft news.
Key-words: Tabloidization; Twitter; Soft/Hard News; Journalism; Content Analysis.
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Despite the major changes that have occurred in the ecology of media, this article considers medi... more Despite the major changes that have occurred in the ecology of media, this article considers mediatization to be still a concept valuable for grasping and interpreting relations among political communication actors. This article analyses the use of Twitter by politicians as evidenced by journalists' accounts (and practices). In particular, it focuses on journalistic uses of Twitter in the context of political current affairs. This article investigates how and to what degree the use of social media has changed journalists' practices in gathering political news. Moreover, it analyses how journalists describe politicians' use of Twitter and how they reflexively conceive whether adjustments by those politicians to the media logic exist. To this end, the studies present results from 25 semi-structured interviews with Italian journalists occupying prominent roles within the Italian news organizations most important in terms of newspaper circulations and unique visitors to their websites. The research proves that mediatization is still an important framework within which to interpret practices in the new media environment.
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On 23 April 2014, the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hosted a one-hour Q&A event on Twitter... more On 23 April 2014, the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hosted a one-hour Q&A event on Twitter. Named after the hashtag used to aggregate questions and answers, the #matteorisponde (Matteo responds event generated over 3,000 tweets, created by 2,000 users. The Q&A offered the opportunity to investigate meanings and consequences of the process of distance shortening between citizens and representatives, which characterises social media such as Twitter.
The content analysis of the 3,632 Tweets allowed for a classification according to the frame (negative, positive, or neutral); the format (pure question, rhetorical question, position stand, joke, reporting); the macro-theme and the issue. Results showed great divergence between the priorities pointed out by citizens and the issues addressed by the Prime Minister. Simultaneously, the analysis of the Q&A studied citizens approaches and confirmed users’ self-empowerment attitudes towards the community.
Despite the intrinsic limitations of Q&A events such as #matteorisponde, related to the wide discretion left to the respondent to select or ignore queries received, citizens fully embraced the opportunity for dialogue. Their Twitter participation in the public-politician debate represented an important signal of how new web tools can contribute to enriching and enlarging the public space, allowing the intervention of other actors rather than just the traditional elites.
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Political Communication in Times of Crisis, Oscar Luego (ed.), Logos Verlag, 2016, 2016
Thanks to the possibilities offered by digital media to produce and distribute content to a poten... more Thanks to the possibilities offered by digital media to produce and distribute content to a potential global audience, the political and civic engagement of citizens in public debate is thus expanded and simplified. Citizens can now produce and share their own political content, take part in public debate and influence the political agenda. We use the expression “networked public” to refer to a new kind of “performer public” that seems to contribute actively to the political debate by producing, re-adapting and distributing content autonomously. In this perspective we can observe the transformation of the political communication system in the direction of a new model, more centrifugal than centripetal.
This chapter takes up «the challenge for the political communication and information to understand if and how this way of participating in the public sphere “from the bottom” is having a knock-on effect on the traditional political sphere» (Boccia Artieri, 2013, p. 182). To do so we analyse the means through which the “communicative exuberance” (Chadwick, 2009) of the grassroots translates into a more intense participation in the public discussion. The dynamics of online conversation reverberate in public discourse online, and vice versa, and in fact are a key element in the increased hybridization of news systems that are transforming the equilibrium of the system of traditional political communication.
In order to understand how citizens, in their everyday lives, can engage with media so as to further democratic participation in the public sphere , Twitter is a privileged observation point. Firstly, Twitter is a channel for public conversation, often used by citizens for political purposes. Discussions on Twitter go beyond the kind of life-sharing typical of interpersonal communication, giving space to sharing and commenting on current events in real time (live-tweeting). Secondly, Twitter has a strong informative connotation: it is a news medium that can increase users’ awareness of what is happening around them. Twitter, as a “social awareness stream” has blurred the differences between news genres (information and entertainment) and hybridised the content shared by users. News, opinions and moods are often entwined, merging into a single stream that is both conversational and informative. Twitter users are thus connected through fluid conversations. In this sense «the ability of tweets to link to other media content and vice versa makes Twitter an integral part of the networked public sphere that emerges alongside the mass-mediated public".
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Articles, Chapters, Papers by Rossella Rega
and the grassroots responses (bottom-up), the study has empirically investigated in which way the main national news organisations contributed to feed a polarised and uncivil debate.
The news frame analysis on the articles shared on Facebook has shown a plurality of interpretations about the issue (regularisation as emergency, regularisation as problem, political conflict, and solidarity). In comparison to the other outlets, partisan media not only have privileged a problematic and conflictual representation, but also adopted different devices of outrage discourse, thus developing a highly polarised news coverage. The analysis of the users’ comments reinforced the impression that right-wing newspapers have contributed to amplifying negative emotions and harsh attacks towards sensitive targets. Overall, the combination of the three levels of investigation (on news frames, uncivil language devices and users’ comments) gives a clear picture about the relationship between the partisanship of news media and the polarisation of the audience as well as their mutual influence in accordance with the platform mechanisms
The chapter identifies different national approaches to the news media’s ways of addressing online misinformation and discusses potential future avenues for research and regulatory action.
Political incivility is operationalized as a multidimensional concept and specific types are proposed, starting from violations of norms of politeness (interpersonal-level) and proceeding to violation of public norms of civility (public-level). Results show that leaders’ use of uncivil messages trigger greater online participation, thus increasing the visibility of their posts. However, the emotional excitement elicited by these triggering forms of elite communication encourage antagonistic and rude behaviors among users, leading to an increase in uncivil comments and thus jeopardizing the quality of online discussion. Overall, it emerges that incivility combined with divisive issues can be thought of as a tool of communication used strategically by politicians to mobilize voters and to strengthen their political affiliation.
By comparing different lines of research (negative campaigning, political incivility, emotional campaigning), this paper critically examines literature on negativity in politics, and introduces new perspectives aimed at analyzing the use of conflict rhetoric by political representatives.
In the climate of generalized hatred that we experience daily, by watching the news or talk shows, reading online newspapers, or scrolling our Facebook timelines, it is essential to question educational programs’ actual ability to oppose these shifts. Most importantly, we must start rethinking them, especially given the negative consequences of people’s exposure to hostility, rudeness or incivility, both in online and offline spaces. Indeed, as shown by several studies, they amplify the audiences' negative emotions, weaken trust in institutions, increase cynicism and encourage self-defence behaviors, often leading to social isolation. When it comes to young people, who are more fragile and less equipped than other population groups, such risks are even more real. Many countries in Europe have undertaken to implement online device projects aimed at tracking down and detecting violent content, and banning them from social media, in order to stem the growth of hate speech on digital platforms.
However, a purely censored approach does not obviously get to the root of the problem. We must question why many users see hate speech or extreme speech as normal, or even desirable; why they have such a large following and generate such online sharing and dissemination mechanisms. In this regard, we must go beyond a purely punitive logic, and pay attention to the granularity of those everyday online practices underlying contemporary digital cultures. This pilot study aims to examine the experiences of young people while surfing the web, and how they interpret these different kinds of hostile behavior on social media or online chats. In this respect, according to Toniolo Institute (2018), 63% of young people between the ages of 18 and 34 have got carried away by online heated discussions and have deliberately used offensive content in social media discussions, in 66% of cases. These data show that violent discourse, harassment practices and bullying are becoming increasingly popular, even among young people. Online resources can further fuel this hostility through exclusionary, discriminatory and derisive conducts, which can foster group identification by being often associated with forms of collective entertainment. Indeed, references to looser social conventions, which are typical of these environments, as well as the possibility to stay anonymous, can accentuate a sense of ‘deindividuation’. According to this, people perceive their individual identity as less important than the group identity, consequently disinhibiting their behavior. Also, the compulsive use of
smartphones and the affordances of social network platforms contribute to this disinhibition effect, by exacerbating the collapse of spatial-temporal and social contexts, and increasingly blurring the boundaries between public and private. Therefore, on the one hand the socio-technological aspects of new media appear to significantly affect these phenomena; on the other, violent behavior online (including direct activities and sharing violent content) clearly appear as practices that are constitutive of identity and political subjectivity. Within this scenario, also political representatives play a major role. Instead of committing to pacify public opinion, they seem much more interested in riding the wave of dissent, especially through their social accounts, by resorting to hate speech, mocking and bullying practices against opponents and others. Restraint and moderation, which once characterized traditional political rhetoric, have now given way to feelings of hostility and demonization of opponents, aiming to galvanize followers and to instigate anger and social discontent. Indeed, this sharp communication style is intended not just to increase political visibility, due to uncivil messages’ ability to engage users. It also bridges the gap with ordinary people, who can identify more easily with such practices and styles, rather than with complex and abstract theoretical-political arguments. Although the best example of this strategy is undoubtedly Trump's use of Twitter, there are some concrete examples in Italy as well, as shown by the social media campaigning for the 2018 general election. Starting from these premises, this work focuses on an important segment of society, consisting of young people who grew up with Internet, in order to analyze their relationship with violent and aggressive online communication, both by their peers and political representatives. The attention is focused on two phenomena that were distinctly studied in academia: cyberbullying by young people and the different forms of incivility by politicians. The goal is to examine the perceptions and meanings attributed by young people to the different types of hostile communication, by assessing the level of acceptability of each of them and its variations, depending on different contexts and actors (interpersonal; online interactions with institutional actors). In the following paragraphs, we will briefly explain the study, and discuss findings and implications.
The article addresses issues in response to the concern about the growth of hate messages in online public debate which involves different actors including politicians. Focusing in particular on young people, it aims at examining cyberbullying within a broader framework, linking the bullying behavior to the growth of incivility in public discourse, especially on social media. The theoretical overview of incivility and cyberbullying shows areas of overlap, confirming the fact that these are not individual phenomena, but they affect the whole society. The article identifies trajectories of research, as well as useful interventions to counteract their pervasive spread.
Keywords
Cyberbullying, hate speech, incivility, social media, digital practices
The analysis focuses on the uses of different forms of incivility by the principal Italian political leaders on their Facebook pages throughout eight weeks of 2018 electoral campaign (top-down incivility), and their consequences on users’ comments (bottom-up incivility). Results show that incivility occurs more often in association with polarized topics, such as the immigration issue. Furthermore, the exposure to uncivil discussion favors the increase of uncivil comments. Both impoliteness and incivility increase bottom-up uncivil discussion, perpetuating «the spectacle of incivility», and facilitating the decline of public sphere.
politics typical of television setting are adapted in the new digital habitat.
Following the selection of specific indicators the research analyses the
tweets produced by the main Italian leaders over a year and a half. The
multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) has identified three specific selfpersonalization strategies: (i) Professional Leader, (ii) Intimate Persona, (iii) Intimate Leader, which have been related with the average of the likes received. The results confirmed that the adoption of personalized strategies is now part of the leaders’ communicative preferences particularly through messages aimed at presenting their most intimate and personal side. At the same time, the research showed the users’ preferences for these strategies aimed at strengthening the sense (or illusion) of greater intimacy with the politician. From this perspective the study also allows to understand the meaning that arenas like Twitter offer to the process of “shortening the distances” between citizens and political representatives. In this regard, we point out that the transition from TV to social media further accentuates personalization, giving politicians entire control over their self-disclosure activities.
Key-words: Tabloidization; Twitter; Soft/Hard News; Journalism; Content Analysis.
The content analysis of the 3,632 Tweets allowed for a classification according to the frame (negative, positive, or neutral); the format (pure question, rhetorical question, position stand, joke, reporting); the macro-theme and the issue. Results showed great divergence between the priorities pointed out by citizens and the issues addressed by the Prime Minister. Simultaneously, the analysis of the Q&A studied citizens approaches and confirmed users’ self-empowerment attitudes towards the community.
Despite the intrinsic limitations of Q&A events such as #matteorisponde, related to the wide discretion left to the respondent to select or ignore queries received, citizens fully embraced the opportunity for dialogue. Their Twitter participation in the public-politician debate represented an important signal of how new web tools can contribute to enriching and enlarging the public space, allowing the intervention of other actors rather than just the traditional elites.
This chapter takes up «the challenge for the political communication and information to understand if and how this way of participating in the public sphere “from the bottom” is having a knock-on effect on the traditional political sphere» (Boccia Artieri, 2013, p. 182). To do so we analyse the means through which the “communicative exuberance” (Chadwick, 2009) of the grassroots translates into a more intense participation in the public discussion. The dynamics of online conversation reverberate in public discourse online, and vice versa, and in fact are a key element in the increased hybridization of news systems that are transforming the equilibrium of the system of traditional political communication.
In order to understand how citizens, in their everyday lives, can engage with media so as to further democratic participation in the public sphere , Twitter is a privileged observation point. Firstly, Twitter is a channel for public conversation, often used by citizens for political purposes. Discussions on Twitter go beyond the kind of life-sharing typical of interpersonal communication, giving space to sharing and commenting on current events in real time (live-tweeting). Secondly, Twitter has a strong informative connotation: it is a news medium that can increase users’ awareness of what is happening around them. Twitter, as a “social awareness stream” has blurred the differences between news genres (information and entertainment) and hybridised the content shared by users. News, opinions and moods are often entwined, merging into a single stream that is both conversational and informative. Twitter users are thus connected through fluid conversations. In this sense «the ability of tweets to link to other media content and vice versa makes Twitter an integral part of the networked public sphere that emerges alongside the mass-mediated public".
and the grassroots responses (bottom-up), the study has empirically investigated in which way the main national news organisations contributed to feed a polarised and uncivil debate.
The news frame analysis on the articles shared on Facebook has shown a plurality of interpretations about the issue (regularisation as emergency, regularisation as problem, political conflict, and solidarity). In comparison to the other outlets, partisan media not only have privileged a problematic and conflictual representation, but also adopted different devices of outrage discourse, thus developing a highly polarised news coverage. The analysis of the users’ comments reinforced the impression that right-wing newspapers have contributed to amplifying negative emotions and harsh attacks towards sensitive targets. Overall, the combination of the three levels of investigation (on news frames, uncivil language devices and users’ comments) gives a clear picture about the relationship between the partisanship of news media and the polarisation of the audience as well as their mutual influence in accordance with the platform mechanisms
The chapter identifies different national approaches to the news media’s ways of addressing online misinformation and discusses potential future avenues for research and regulatory action.
Political incivility is operationalized as a multidimensional concept and specific types are proposed, starting from violations of norms of politeness (interpersonal-level) and proceeding to violation of public norms of civility (public-level). Results show that leaders’ use of uncivil messages trigger greater online participation, thus increasing the visibility of their posts. However, the emotional excitement elicited by these triggering forms of elite communication encourage antagonistic and rude behaviors among users, leading to an increase in uncivil comments and thus jeopardizing the quality of online discussion. Overall, it emerges that incivility combined with divisive issues can be thought of as a tool of communication used strategically by politicians to mobilize voters and to strengthen their political affiliation.
By comparing different lines of research (negative campaigning, political incivility, emotional campaigning), this paper critically examines literature on negativity in politics, and introduces new perspectives aimed at analyzing the use of conflict rhetoric by political representatives.
In the climate of generalized hatred that we experience daily, by watching the news or talk shows, reading online newspapers, or scrolling our Facebook timelines, it is essential to question educational programs’ actual ability to oppose these shifts. Most importantly, we must start rethinking them, especially given the negative consequences of people’s exposure to hostility, rudeness or incivility, both in online and offline spaces. Indeed, as shown by several studies, they amplify the audiences' negative emotions, weaken trust in institutions, increase cynicism and encourage self-defence behaviors, often leading to social isolation. When it comes to young people, who are more fragile and less equipped than other population groups, such risks are even more real. Many countries in Europe have undertaken to implement online device projects aimed at tracking down and detecting violent content, and banning them from social media, in order to stem the growth of hate speech on digital platforms.
However, a purely censored approach does not obviously get to the root of the problem. We must question why many users see hate speech or extreme speech as normal, or even desirable; why they have such a large following and generate such online sharing and dissemination mechanisms. In this regard, we must go beyond a purely punitive logic, and pay attention to the granularity of those everyday online practices underlying contemporary digital cultures. This pilot study aims to examine the experiences of young people while surfing the web, and how they interpret these different kinds of hostile behavior on social media or online chats. In this respect, according to Toniolo Institute (2018), 63% of young people between the ages of 18 and 34 have got carried away by online heated discussions and have deliberately used offensive content in social media discussions, in 66% of cases. These data show that violent discourse, harassment practices and bullying are becoming increasingly popular, even among young people. Online resources can further fuel this hostility through exclusionary, discriminatory and derisive conducts, which can foster group identification by being often associated with forms of collective entertainment. Indeed, references to looser social conventions, which are typical of these environments, as well as the possibility to stay anonymous, can accentuate a sense of ‘deindividuation’. According to this, people perceive their individual identity as less important than the group identity, consequently disinhibiting their behavior. Also, the compulsive use of
smartphones and the affordances of social network platforms contribute to this disinhibition effect, by exacerbating the collapse of spatial-temporal and social contexts, and increasingly blurring the boundaries between public and private. Therefore, on the one hand the socio-technological aspects of new media appear to significantly affect these phenomena; on the other, violent behavior online (including direct activities and sharing violent content) clearly appear as practices that are constitutive of identity and political subjectivity. Within this scenario, also political representatives play a major role. Instead of committing to pacify public opinion, they seem much more interested in riding the wave of dissent, especially through their social accounts, by resorting to hate speech, mocking and bullying practices against opponents and others. Restraint and moderation, which once characterized traditional political rhetoric, have now given way to feelings of hostility and demonization of opponents, aiming to galvanize followers and to instigate anger and social discontent. Indeed, this sharp communication style is intended not just to increase political visibility, due to uncivil messages’ ability to engage users. It also bridges the gap with ordinary people, who can identify more easily with such practices and styles, rather than with complex and abstract theoretical-political arguments. Although the best example of this strategy is undoubtedly Trump's use of Twitter, there are some concrete examples in Italy as well, as shown by the social media campaigning for the 2018 general election. Starting from these premises, this work focuses on an important segment of society, consisting of young people who grew up with Internet, in order to analyze their relationship with violent and aggressive online communication, both by their peers and political representatives. The attention is focused on two phenomena that were distinctly studied in academia: cyberbullying by young people and the different forms of incivility by politicians. The goal is to examine the perceptions and meanings attributed by young people to the different types of hostile communication, by assessing the level of acceptability of each of them and its variations, depending on different contexts and actors (interpersonal; online interactions with institutional actors). In the following paragraphs, we will briefly explain the study, and discuss findings and implications.
The article addresses issues in response to the concern about the growth of hate messages in online public debate which involves different actors including politicians. Focusing in particular on young people, it aims at examining cyberbullying within a broader framework, linking the bullying behavior to the growth of incivility in public discourse, especially on social media. The theoretical overview of incivility and cyberbullying shows areas of overlap, confirming the fact that these are not individual phenomena, but they affect the whole society. The article identifies trajectories of research, as well as useful interventions to counteract their pervasive spread.
Keywords
Cyberbullying, hate speech, incivility, social media, digital practices
The analysis focuses on the uses of different forms of incivility by the principal Italian political leaders on their Facebook pages throughout eight weeks of 2018 electoral campaign (top-down incivility), and their consequences on users’ comments (bottom-up incivility). Results show that incivility occurs more often in association with polarized topics, such as the immigration issue. Furthermore, the exposure to uncivil discussion favors the increase of uncivil comments. Both impoliteness and incivility increase bottom-up uncivil discussion, perpetuating «the spectacle of incivility», and facilitating the decline of public sphere.
politics typical of television setting are adapted in the new digital habitat.
Following the selection of specific indicators the research analyses the
tweets produced by the main Italian leaders over a year and a half. The
multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) has identified three specific selfpersonalization strategies: (i) Professional Leader, (ii) Intimate Persona, (iii) Intimate Leader, which have been related with the average of the likes received. The results confirmed that the adoption of personalized strategies is now part of the leaders’ communicative preferences particularly through messages aimed at presenting their most intimate and personal side. At the same time, the research showed the users’ preferences for these strategies aimed at strengthening the sense (or illusion) of greater intimacy with the politician. From this perspective the study also allows to understand the meaning that arenas like Twitter offer to the process of “shortening the distances” between citizens and political representatives. In this regard, we point out that the transition from TV to social media further accentuates personalization, giving politicians entire control over their self-disclosure activities.
Key-words: Tabloidization; Twitter; Soft/Hard News; Journalism; Content Analysis.
The content analysis of the 3,632 Tweets allowed for a classification according to the frame (negative, positive, or neutral); the format (pure question, rhetorical question, position stand, joke, reporting); the macro-theme and the issue. Results showed great divergence between the priorities pointed out by citizens and the issues addressed by the Prime Minister. Simultaneously, the analysis of the Q&A studied citizens approaches and confirmed users’ self-empowerment attitudes towards the community.
Despite the intrinsic limitations of Q&A events such as #matteorisponde, related to the wide discretion left to the respondent to select or ignore queries received, citizens fully embraced the opportunity for dialogue. Their Twitter participation in the public-politician debate represented an important signal of how new web tools can contribute to enriching and enlarging the public space, allowing the intervention of other actors rather than just the traditional elites.
This chapter takes up «the challenge for the political communication and information to understand if and how this way of participating in the public sphere “from the bottom” is having a knock-on effect on the traditional political sphere» (Boccia Artieri, 2013, p. 182). To do so we analyse the means through which the “communicative exuberance” (Chadwick, 2009) of the grassroots translates into a more intense participation in the public discussion. The dynamics of online conversation reverberate in public discourse online, and vice versa, and in fact are a key element in the increased hybridization of news systems that are transforming the equilibrium of the system of traditional political communication.
In order to understand how citizens, in their everyday lives, can engage with media so as to further democratic participation in the public sphere , Twitter is a privileged observation point. Firstly, Twitter is a channel for public conversation, often used by citizens for political purposes. Discussions on Twitter go beyond the kind of life-sharing typical of interpersonal communication, giving space to sharing and commenting on current events in real time (live-tweeting). Secondly, Twitter has a strong informative connotation: it is a news medium that can increase users’ awareness of what is happening around them. Twitter, as a “social awareness stream” has blurred the differences between news genres (information and entertainment) and hybridised the content shared by users. News, opinions and moods are often entwined, merging into a single stream that is both conversational and informative. Twitter users are thus connected through fluid conversations. In this sense «the ability of tweets to link to other media content and vice versa makes Twitter an integral part of the networked public sphere that emerges alongside the mass-mediated public".