Ricerc@Sapienza

The economic, political and cultural crisis of Italy and the Western democracies affects the daily life of individuals and becomes distrust of institutions and traditional political parties, dissatisfaction and resentment. Once these negative sentiments - exploited especially during the election campaign - have emerged, thy also affects people and groups not directly touched by the crisis’ effect, conforming to a mechanism of conflict expansion. Sometimes, insecurity and resentment become narrowness and fear of the foreigner. In this regard, the article presents data from a web survey and a study based on the content analysis of the social campaign conducted on Facebook during the 2018 Italian general elections.