Ricerc@Sapienza

The public communication campaign about «Fertility Day», promoted by the Italian Ministry of Health in August 2016, aimed at raising citizens’ awareness on the issue of couple fer- tility. Ministry intended to involve the audiences connected via social media with informal and irreverent viral images and claims oriented to preserve fertility. Nevertheless, unexpect- edly, the messages themselves turned into the target of an extensive and articulated pro- test. The circulation of the communication materials provoked a critical online debate that subsequently took on the dimension of organized political protest, resulting in an online counter-campaign (identi ed with the hashtag #FertilityFake) and a street demonstration in 13 Italian cities. The common thread that holds together the spontaneous reactions of con- nected audiences and the activists’ protest is the overall reframing of the public campaign, which makes the mobilizations against Fertility Day a case of unexpected engagement. The research focuses on the analysis of a set of images produced to promote the counter-cam- paign, highlighting how the informal, ironic language and the reframing of the contents of the public communication campaign created a fertile connection between the creative abilities of the social media audiences and more traditional forms of political activism.