Our socio-political and cultural landscape has dramatically changed, in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, for some time now. Economic inequalities and social conflict are getting worse, while political dissent is escalating like never before, sometimes leading to social rage and even violence. Previously unspeakable feelings are spoken out loud in the protected environment of the Internet, as a symptom of a process of disintermediation through which politics has lost its capacity to channel these brutal, basic feelings; in this way, it is easy to take the path of an absolute politics that is likely to induce more primitive ways of thinking (e.g., everyone is either a friend or an enemy). The idea here is that such a situation clearly indicates the existence of new socio-cognitive organizational principles, that is, new ¿mind maps¿. As social scientist, we pay a great deal of attention to the ubiquitous virtualization of everyday life and human relationships: it is impressive how the socialization to politics is now mediated by social networks and digital platforms, and this is especially true when it comes to the younger generation. The evidence is that a huge section of the population displays only a superficial knowledge of social reality, since compulsive and shallow updates (riddled with fake news) are systematically preferred over in-depth analyses ¿ a behavior encouraged particularly by television and new media. This is all the more treacherous given that the socio-cognitive impoverishment individuals¿ skills is ramping up, especially among youngsters. Our ultimate goal is to understand and quantify (through a broad-scope national survey research) the level of personal autonomy and critical thinking vs. the level of cognitive populism among Italian high school students, explaining also the role of underlying mechanisms and putting forward some meaningful solutions, against the background of a changing media landscape.
Reflecting the overarching research theme, its innovative and left-field potential can be summarized as follows:
(¿) It would be the first broad-based Italian survey research on the topic of populism and its socio-cognitive mechanisms, made highly reliable through the use of a nationally representative sample. It would involve thousands of students, administering them a tried-and-tested questionnaire that has already proved to be successful, able to generate a tremendous amount of valuable sociological insights. To this, it should be added the extra value represented by the urgency of this historical moment for the Italian political scenario.
(¿) The particular concern given to the socio-cognitive dimension of populism should be considered quite remarkable, since it entails a qualitative and nuanced approach to the whole phenomenon, which promises to be of great advantage for a better understanding of populism and its subtle shades of meaning.
(¿) Therefore, the research project would entail flipping the mainstream idea that populism is only a matter of politics (that is, just another way of tackling the political debate), claiming instead that it has incredibly important socio-cognitive features, closely linked to the independence of thought of individuals as well as to their critical thinking skills.
(¿) The research is specifically targeted to high school students and young people. Far from being a random choice, this decision rather proves its vision when it comes to social forecasting: in fact, we will deal here with the citizens (and voters) of tomorrow, something necessary for anticipating future socio-political trends.
(¿) Analyzing and integrating both quantitative (e.g., online surveys) and qualitative (e.g., face-to-face focus groups, in-depth interviews) techniques, the research project is designed as a high-quality mixed methods study, having the potential to advance social theory and enhance the usefulness of research findings.