Ricerc@Sapienza

Fake news appear to be one of the most relevant and widespread phenomena characterising media landscape in the last few years, to the point that several fundamental international political and social events, such as the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America and the Brexit referendum, are considered to have been strongly influenced by the dissemination of fake contents.

In this paper we examine the use of Twitter and Facebook in two dramatic earthquakes that hit Italy: L’Aquila (in 2009) and Emilia (in 2012). Indeed, disasters disrupt everyday life and engage people in meaning-making processes aimed at recovering meaning and control of their world. In these cases, we argue that the use of social media may contribute to social representa- tions processes and functions: cognitive coping, social sharing of emotions, preserving self-efficacy, boosting identity, and community empowerment.

The contribution aims, in its first part, at framing the populist phenomenon from the point of view of historical and political evolution of two interrelated processes: the praise of the direct representation of the popular will and the criticism and delegitimization of the elite. These processes find a sudden acceleration at the time of disintermediation, which clearly demonstrates its dual nature as an object of study between politics and communication.

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.

Il linguaggio ha, per sua natura, un carattere particolarmente dinamico e cangiante. Si rinnova costantemente per esprimere significati e orientamenti, utili a rappresentare tempi e spazi. In questo divenire, lo sport è uno di contenuti più utilizzati per raccontare i cambiamenti sociali, ma è anche un sistema sociale complesso che utilizza la comunicazione per dialogare e concorrere allo sviluppo della società.

Recensione ad un volume collettaneo sui molteplici profili giuridici dei social media, che testimonia il progressivo aumento di
attenzione specifica al tema dell’impatto che l’uso della Rete Internet ha sull’ordinamento giuridico.

Over the past ten years grassroots music production has been incentivized by an increasing number of web-platforms that allow to autonomously manage music promotion and distribution. The adoption of such tools has been fostered by the promise to facilitate the development of sustainable DIY careers, however is widely debated ‘how much’ and ‘for who’ they are actually able to do so, especially considering the wider changes affecting music production.

I social media vengono indicati tra i principali responsabili del considerevole calo di copertura vaccinale registrato in Italia. L’inedita vocalità offerta da tali piattaforme alle opinioni dei cittadini comuni influenza in modo significativo i nuovi atteggiamenti culturali nei confronti della vaccinazione.

Social media are playing an increasingly important role during and in the aftermath of natural disasters. Several case studies show how citizens and institutions are using them to spread or gather relevant information, share emotions or support recovery actions. In 2013, Potts defined the role of social media during natural disasters as a ‘largely untapped site of study’ (Potts, 2014, p. 98). Although scholars are now engaging in a growing volume of research in this field, the literature still appears fragmented and overwhelmingly based on single case studies.

This study builds on existing work on cartographic thinking in everyday life to better understand how our communication with others and use of media influences our perceptions of continental scale geography. Using a mixed, US-Italian sample of college students living in cities on similar latitudes (40N), we found that there is a bias in placing U.S. cities further north and European cities further south than where they should be.