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The first months of 2020 saw the coronavirus pandemic explode. Moving from China, it arrived in Europe and hit Italy. The place where the debate around it exploded was the media ecosystem. In a sho...

The purpose of this introduction is to set a useful frame for reading this thematic section. The key concepts of digital platforms, affective polarization, sharing of emotions are explored. The art...

This study contributes to the international debate on the hashtag's nature and characteristics and attempts to define it as a relational social form affected by morphogenetic–morphostatic processes. To develop this interpretative proposal, this study uses the dimensions of time and agency, drawing on Twitter hashtag studies. Subsequently, the article recalls elements of cultural morphogenesis, traces the points of contact between hashtag studies and cultural morphogenesis, constructs an interpretative proposal of the hashtag as a relational social form, and arrives at the formalization of a model for analyzing the changing meaning of hashtags.

Hashtag research has established itself as a relevant research field, with various studies having analysed this polysemic collector in crisis and media events. Hashtags are used in social media, most specifically on Twitter. Further, between 2020 and 2021, hashtag studies linked to the COVID-19 pandemic have emerged. Accordingly, this study aimed to analyse the content of tweets during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 4–11, 2020) that included the hashtag #Covid-19 in three different languages: Italian, Spanish, and French. For these analyses, we used emotional text mining. The goal of this study was to reconstruct the representation of the pandemic, of containment measures, and of Europe in tweets. We discussed the prevailing attitude towards Europe in times of crisis.

Los hashtags representan una forma extremadamente simple, utilizada dentro de la red social, para conectar noticias, temas, personas, emociones, eventos. Si en el primer período fue posible considerarlos exclusivamente como agregadores temáticos, ahora es necesario preguntarnos en qué se han convertido. Al analizar diferentes perspectivas teóricas, este artículo tiene como objetivo llegar a una definición del término y el concepto hashtag.

In recent years hashtag studies have increased their numbers. The role of hashtags becomes increasingly predominant in social media studies. Many researchers wonder how to study them, ending up treating them in an aggregate way and turning to big data and static-mathematical modeling. This type of studies seem to consider hashtags as tools, favoring a single analysis perspective. In fact, The studies and the research carried out in the field of social media deal with what users do with hashtags. This paper wishes to propose a different perspective. The question raised here is not “what users do with hashtags,” but “what they do to hashtags.” This theoretical approach presupposes a change in the perspective based on the reading of hashtags as speech acts, which impacts the construction of social reality and identifies hashtags as cultural products. This interpretative path of cultural nature seems to be necessary in order to be able to look at the hashtag as a concept that changes its meaning through human interaction. The consequence of inserting this perspective is that the hashtag becomes a multidimensional concept, which in order to be analyzed must be decomposed and analyzed in all its possible dimensions. If the aim of the research is to reconstruct the sense and meaning of the hashtag. Key words: Affordances, cultural objects, Hashtag, sensemaking, speech act.

The mediatization of emotions emerges as an affordance of social media, the study of which involves paying attention to digital practices and to the construction and expression of public affection. This happens both for the great events and for the daily demonstrations of support or its denial. In this article we work on the phenomenon of the mediatization of emotions linked to two LGBTQI+ icons and expressed in hashtags on Twitter. Placing it in a specific context – the one of well-known television characters who have declared their homosexual orientation or transgender identity. The objective is to understand if the cloud of feelings they have created on Twitter is to be attributed to a true globally mediatized emotional exchange, or just an expression of emotions on the social media, and discover which emotional dynamics, linked to the LGBTQI+ world, they express.

Il contenuto di un medium e sempre un altro medium e con l’avvento delle tecnologie digitali si assiste a un’amplificazione del rapporto di compenetrazione tra vecchie e nuove tecnologie della comunicazione. Guardare a un medium e alle pratiche che intorno a esso si sviluppano con l’obiettivo di riuscire a cogliere le differenze rispetto al tempo e agli usi pone diversi quesiti, che hanno a che fare con la conoscenza e con il metodo. In questo lavoro si sceglie come medium l’oralita e si individua la sua pratica nei rumors. Per capire come nel corso del tempo si sia modificata la pratica di diffusione ed esercizio di influenza attraverso i rumors si ricorre a concetti quali la Weltanschauung di Mannheim (1952) e l’habitus di Bourdieu (1972, 1979, 1994).

The alarmism caused by the use of catastrophic headlines and words on major means of communication as soon as the arrival of migrants along the coasts of southern European countries intensifies is ...

In her The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt described the condition of apolidia (statelessness) – through words that still resonate today – as that of persons who have lost their rights because they have fled their homeland. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (U.N.H.C.R.), there are about 10 million stateless persons worldwide, 600,000 of whom live in the European Union (E.U.). It seems impossible to imagine the concept of statelessness, which although it has a very specific definition in international law, remains a vague notion for the intellect and common sense. This paper will firstly focus on the historical evolution of the concept of nationality under international law. Secondly, it will deal with the international legal framework, and in particular the 1954 and 1961 Conventions on the improvement of the conditions of stateless persons and the prevention of statelessness. It will then turn to the U.N.H.C.R.’s mandate in relation to stateless...

Nel corso degli ultimi cinquant’anni la pubblicita ha cambiato piu volte veste: da reclame, ad advertising a publicity; parallelamente sono mutate le teorie interpretative che la accompagnano. In questo studio si propone una riflessione in merito a una nuova forma di comunicazione commerciale: l’advergaming. Dell’advergaming si presentano le sue forme: l’adgame e l’in-game advertising. Per chiarirne il portato si produce una disamina delle caratteristiche dei videogiochi e poi si affronta la questione della semiotica della pubblicita e della semiotica dei videogiochi. Si e scelto di seguire tale percorso espositivo al fine di maturare una riflessione in merito alle conseguenze che questa nuova forma di comunicazione commerciale - che richiama la narrazione transmediale - ha sulle nuove generazioni.

In the past thirty years, there has been a radical change in almost every business sector: companies nowadays offer increasingly complete packages or “bundles,” i.e-, combinations of goods, services, assistance, self-service and customer-focused knowledge. But it is services that have the lion’s share. In this context, those involved in the servitization process, such as designers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists, seem to focus more and more on the customer experience than on enabling technology. This has led to the birth of many successful new companies as well as to financial scandals. The aim of this article is to understand how the “fake ’til you make it” approach in design and business has found a key ally in the media. Furthermore, in view of the unprecedented opportunities offered by ICT and artificial intelligence, and in light of the challenges of the green transition, we discuss its ethical and pedagogical implications for the entire field of design.

Il gioco d’azzardo rappresenta un fenomeno in continuo mutamento, di crescente complessità e di non facile controllo, con impatti talvolta imprevedibili sull’individuo, sull’azienda, sull’economia di una nazione, sulla criminalità organizzata, sull’intera collettività. In particolare, gli autori riportano nel contributo delle considerazioni sul metodo attraverso il quale la mafia effettua le sue infiltrazioni nel settore del gioco d'azzardo. Nel contributo si evidenzia inoltrela relazione quantitativa esistente tra l’esercizio abusivo del gioco e delle scommesse e il fenomeno delle associazioni di tipo mafioso. Infine, verranno tratte alcune considerazioni sintetiche sui deficit istituzionali e sulle lacune del tessuto sociale specialmente al Sud d’Italia e nelle Isole.