Phases of Social Media Adoption in Italian Politics

The final presenter in this AoIR 2015 session is Luca Rossi, who shifts our attention to Italian politics. His interest moves beyond elections, too, as elections represent a very specific political moment. Internet and social media use in Italy is still relatively limited – in 2012, only 62% of the population were online, and the main source of information remains television.

At the same time, some 36% of Italian social media users engage in political debate – an unusually high number. This may be due in part to the substantial connections between mainstream media and the political establishment in Italy – social media provide an important alternative space for political discussion away from such established, staid media spaces.

There are three phases of political social media use in Italy: the first was dominated by blogs, which were never widely taken up by mainstream politicians but spawned new political leaders such as Beppe Grillo, whose Movimento Cinque Stelle movement is now the second largest political force in Italy. At the same time, Grillo's blogging style is atypical: he never interacts with his commenters, but the blog (and subsequently his Facebook page) provide a space for supporters to engage with each other.

The next phase is the Twitter phase: some 250 politicians (of nearly 1000 in the national parliament) now have active Twitter accounts, and are variously employing one-to-many or one-to-one communication styles. For some, Twitter is now simply front-stage communication, with official announcements, while Instagram is used for more intimate, back-stage insights. Others are much more direct in their style – one right-wing leader will pick fights with other Twitter users and take a generally aggressive a approach towards others.

The third phase, however, is centred less on what the politicians themselves do, but on the content that regular users create – there are many responses to politicians' activities, and many of them are highly generative of new memes and other viral content that critiques and attacks political players.