This paper is part of a research about collective movements and political participation of young people and students in Italy during 1977. At that time the Italian political scene was characterized by an explosion of collective violence and political protest both against the establishement and the political tine of the Communist Party. The problem is being approached from a sociology of the mass media view point, through an examination of the twenty most important Italian newspaper in the period from Febraury to May ,1977. The most relevant fact of this period was the attempt on the part of intellectuals to suggest various «explanations, by means of sociological, psychological and anthropological categories and concepts. «Suoh» explanations contribued to outline a «collective image» of the Movmment. This image built up a definition of the Movement as important as the image that the Movement tried to give itself. The«collective image» is introduced by (i) the social and political groups representative of the Movement, (ii) the aspects of collective action used for describing the Movement, and (iii) the casual categories accounting for a explanation of the Movement. According to this analysis, the explanatory of the Movement, its primum movens, is the concept of «crisis»: -- crisis of the economic system; -- crisis of consensus in the political system; -- crisis of continuity in the socialisation processes; -- crisis of legitimacy in the normative system; -- crisis of Culture. Beside the idea of crisis, and its being «visible» through insurrection, rebellion, anger, the image of the Movement is related to a «social representation, of youth, as irresponsible, frustrated, marginal, rejected, hopeless. Such «representation, is necessary precondition for any project aimed at restoring the social order to become credible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]