This article aims to identify the hybridization that journalists have created to reconcile the pressures arising from the affirmation of the culture of participation and sharing of social media with the traditional norms and practices that are the basis of the journalistic identity. This study analyses the behavior of 1202 Italian journalists on Twitter between 1 January and 29 February 2016, focusing on the interpretation of the transparency norm, the gatekeeping function, and audience engagement. These are norms and practices that are both old and new and that allow us to understand the adaptations journalists make in order to respond to the technological transformations that have affected existing models of journalism and the degree of professionalization of journalists themselves. Through the analysis of the 23,515 tweets published by journalists of different media outlets (newspapers, wire services, TV news, and only-online media), this study has allowed to empirically test the existence of a general adoption of Twitter by Italian journalists, characterized by a ‘hybrid normalization’, that is, a combination of old practices with new modalities with the dual aim of sharing the culture of social media and legitimizing the professional position of journalism.

By analyzing all of the keywords and hashtags that became Trending Topics (TTs) in the Italian Twittersphere during both an electoral period and a non-electoral period, we evaluated what Italian Twitter users discussed. We found that topics about actors and issues in the entertainment field (e.g., singers, Hollywood stars and television stars) drive Italian discussions and that the political sphere is a secondary topic that elicits minor arguments within users' conversations. However, we believe that even this low level of discussion about politics was able to influence the public agenda, thanks to the advent of a hybrid media system in Italy. In fact, Italian print media and television constantly covered the individual tweets or hashtags of a niche of citizens who were discussing politics on Twitter. Television, a part of the Italian media system that is highly consumed by the public, is also a primary factor in determining the appearance of a specific actor or issue on the TT list. Furthermore, we empirically confirmed the logic of breaking news events on Twitter, a microblogging site that primarily focuses on exceptional occurrences.

The study addresses central issues in contemporary politics in response to growing concern about the impoverishment of political discourse that has become increasingly uncivil. In particular it analhyzes citizens' reactions to leaders' uncivil posts on Facebook during the 2018 Italian General Election, by adopting a theoretical-operational model based on a dual approach (top down -bottom up) that examines the forms of adverse communication used by politicians online, and the consequences of these forms on users' discussion (analyzing both ranking behaviors and users' comments).Political incivility is operationalized as a multidimensional concept and specific types are proposed, starting from violations of norms of politeness (interpersonal-level) and proceeding to violation of public norms of civility (public-level). Results show that leaders' use of uncivil messages trigger greater online participation, thus increasing the visibility of their posts. However, the emotional excitement elicited by these triggering forms of elite communication encourage antagonistic and rude behaviors among users, leading to an increase in uncivil comments and thus jeopardizing the quality of online discussion. Overall, it emerges that incivility combined with divisive issues can be thought of as a tool of communication used strategically by politicians to mobilize voters and to strengthen their political affiliation.

The practice of live tweeting while following a television programme is quickly becoming a widespread phenomenon. However, in Italy, commenting on a political debate via social media is a novelty. This article presents the first exemplary case study in an Italian context, the ‘Italia bene comune’ debate, hosted by SkyTg24 on 12 November 2012. This debate focused on elections to designate a candidate to lead the government from the centre-left coalition. The findings indicate the new hybridisation of media: television’s centrality is confirmed regarding its domination in the public space in which political discussion occurs, and the web demonstrates its own capacity for an active role in an event central to Italian politics. The new element was the active participation of a vocal minority who commented online as the media event unfolded live on television.

As part of a larger European Union (EU)-funded project, this paper investigates the coverage of corruption and related topics in three European democracies: France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Based on Freedom House data, these countries are characterized by different levels of press freedom. A large corpus of newspaper articles (107,248 articles) from the period 2004 to 2013 were analyzed using dedicated software. We demonstrate that freedom of press is not the only dimension that affects the ability to and the way in which news media report on corruption. Because of its political partisanship, the Italian press tends to emphasize and dramatize corruption cases involving domestic public administrators and, in particular, politicians. The British coverage is affected mainly by market factors, and the press pays more attention to cases occurring abroad and in sport. The French coverage shares specific features with both the British and the Italian coverage: Newspapers mainly focus on corruption involving business companies and foreign actors, but they also cover cases involving domestic politicians. Media market segmentation, political parallelism, and media instrumentalization determine different representations preventing the establishment of unanimously shared indignation.