the “popolo viola”. networked publics
DESCRIPTION
presented during the 11th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) "Internet Research 11.0: Sustainability, Participation, Action" (Gothenburg, Sweden, October 21-23, 2010)TRANSCRIPT
Giovanni [.] Boccia Artieri [@uniurb.it]Fabio [.] Giglietto [@uniurb.it]Mario [.] Orefice [@uniurb.it]
LaRiCA/Department of Communication StudiesUniversità di Urbino Carlo Bo
The “Popolo viola”. Networked Publics and civic engagement in Italy on social media
NETWORKED PUBLICS AND THE NEW PUBLIC SPHERE(S)
1
Networked public(s) culture
public sphere connected public spheres
A new structural transoformation of the Public Sphere
MEDIA PARTICIPATION, CIVICNESS AND POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT
2
(Bennett 2008)
Shift of the civicness paradigm
Dutiful Citizenship (DC) obligation to participate in government
centered activities; voting is the core democratic act; information by following mass media; joins civil society organizations and/or
expresses interests through parties
Self-Actualizing Citizenship (SAC) diminished sense of government obligation
-higher sense of individual purpose; voting is less meaningful than other, more
personally defined acts such as consumerism, community volunteering, or transnational activism;
mistrust of media and politicians is reinforced by negative mass media environment;
favors loose networks of community action often established or sustained through friendships and peer relations and thin social ties maintained by interactive information technologies.
Mediated civicness
• participatory culture: focus on participation means new emphasis on the ways people act upon media content (Jenkins 2006)
• participatory politics: anchored in non-hierarchical and informal networks, eschew traditional political intermediaries as campaigns, parties, and interest groups (Zukin 2006)
Political knowledge (information/communica
tion based)
Political particiaption (action-based)
Knowledge and participation
Politi
cal e
ngag
emen
t
(Feezell et al, 2009)
THE RAISE OF “POPOLO VIOLA”. BRIEF HISTORY AND MEDIA ECOLOGY
3
Brief history of the movement
2009-10-18 - 2009-10-24
2009-11-01 - 2009-11-07
2009-11-15 - 2009-11-21
2009-11-29 - 2009-12-05
2009-12-13 - 2009-12-19
2009-12-27 - 2010-01-02
2010-01-10 - 2010-01-16
2010-01-24 - 2010-01-30
2010-02-07 - 2010-02-13
2010-02-21 - 2010-02-27
2010-03-07 - 2010-03-13
2010-03-21 - 2010-03-27
2010-04-04 - 2010-04-10
2010-04-18 - 2010-04-24
2010-05-02 - 2010-05-08
2010-05-16 - 2010-05-22
2010-05-30 - 2010-06-05
2010-06-13 - 2010-06-19
2010-06-27 - 2010-07-03
2010-07-11 - 2010-07-17
2010-07-25 - 2010-07-31
2010-08-08 - 2010-08-14
2010-08-22 - 2010-08-28
2010-09-05 - 2010-09-11
2010-09-19 - 2010-09-25
2010-10-03 - 2010-10-09
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Interest over time
no berlusconi day+nobday popolo viola
Italian newspapers front pages
6th of December 2009, the day after the no-B day
Brief history of the movement
2009-10-18 - 2009-10-24
2009-11-01 - 2009-11-07
2009-11-15 - 2009-11-21
2009-11-29 - 2009-12-05
2009-12-13 - 2009-12-19
2009-12-27 - 2010-01-02
2010-01-10 - 2010-01-16
2010-01-24 - 2010-01-30
2010-02-07 - 2010-02-13
2010-02-21 - 2010-02-27
2010-03-07 - 2010-03-13
2010-03-21 - 2010-03-27
2010-04-04 - 2010-04-10
2010-04-18 - 2010-04-24
2010-05-02 - 2010-05-08
2010-05-16 - 2010-05-22
2010-05-30 - 2010-06-05
2010-06-13 - 2010-06-19
2010-06-27 - 2010-07-03
2010-07-11 - 2010-07-17
2010-07-25 - 2010-07-31
2010-08-08 - 2010-08-14
2010-08-22 - 2010-08-28
2010-09-05 - 2010-09-11
2010-09-19 - 2010-09-25
2010-10-03 - 2010-10-09
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Interest over time
no berlusconi day+nobday popolo viola
Italian newspapers front pages
14th of March 2010, rally against «decreto salva liste»
Brief history of the movement
2009-10-18 - 2009-10-24
2009-11-01 - 2009-11-07
2009-11-15 - 2009-11-21
2009-11-29 - 2009-12-05
2009-12-13 - 2009-12-19
2009-12-27 - 2010-01-02
2010-01-10 - 2010-01-16
2010-01-24 - 2010-01-30
2010-02-07 - 2010-02-13
2010-02-21 - 2010-02-27
2010-03-07 - 2010-03-13
2010-03-21 - 2010-03-27
2010-04-04 - 2010-04-10
2010-04-18 - 2010-04-24
2010-05-02 - 2010-05-08
2010-05-16 - 2010-05-22
2010-05-30 - 2010-06-05
2010-06-13 - 2010-06-19
2010-06-27 - 2010-07-03
2010-07-11 - 2010-07-17
2010-07-25 - 2010-07-31
2010-08-08 - 2010-08-14
2010-08-22 - 2010-08-28
2010-09-05 - 2010-09-11
2010-09-19 - 2010-09-25
2010-10-03 - 2010-10-09
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Interest over time
no berlusconi day+nobday popolo viola
Italian newspapers front pages
3rd of October 2010, the day after the «no-B day 2»
Before the «no-B day»
2007-04-01 - 2007-04-072007-11-11 - 2007-11-172008-06-22 - 2008-06-282009-02-01 - 2009-02-072009-09-13 - 2009-09-192010-04-25 - 2010-05-010
20
40
60
80
100
120
Interest over time
no berlusconi day+nobday popolo viola vaffanculo day+vday
V2-Day
V-Day
Italian newspapers front pages
9th of September 2007, the day after the «v-day»
(Pepe & Di Gennaro 2009)
“POPOLO VIOLA” WEB ECOLOGY4
Website link analysis
IssueCrawler + Gephi
“POPOLO VIOLA” ON FACEBOOK5
Retrieved on March 30, 2009 (using the keyword “Popolo viola” on Facebook internal search engine)
Purple groups and pages on Facebook
groups pages0
50
100
150
200
250
214
103
75%
17%
8%
Small groups (1-500) Medium groups (501-1500) Large groups (+ 1501)
Groups segmentation by size
*representative for size type and geographic location
Qualitative analysis
• Based on a random sample of 40 groups*;• Content analysis of wall posts, photos, videos,
discussion board and group descriptions;• Comparison of two periods of time “No B-day”
[19/11-8/12 2009] and a random selected “non active two weeks” [26/04-09/06 2010];
• Development and test of a model aimed to analyze new forms of political movements.
THE POLITICAL-ACTIVISM/SHAPED-INFORMATION (P.A.S.I.) MODEL
6
Political-activism axis
affiliation action
Shaped-information axis
representation
organization
The P.A.S.I. model (1/2)
organization
action
affiliation
representation
P.A.S.I. model (2/2)
Active vs non active weeks comparisonOrganization
Action
Representation
Affiliation 0
200
400
no B-day non active week
Groups by sizeOrganization
Action
Representation
Affiliation 0
100
200
small groups [1-500] medium groups [501-1500] large groups [+ 1501]
Conclusions and future works
• A truly web based movement;• Self-representation as a key factor;• Facebook as a political platform;• Social media as a trace of the evolution of a
phenomenon;• Testing the model on different political
movements.