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The study investigates the online debate sparked by the political instrumentalization of religious symbols by right-wing populist leaders, taking as a case study the campaign communication of Matteo Salvini—leader of the Italian "Lega" party—in the run-up to the 2018 and 2019 general and European elections. Against the backdrop of theories on populism, religious publicization and politicization in a social media context, the research analyzes over 2,000 Facebook posts referring to Salvini and religion by using a mixed computational and qualitative method including semi-automated frame analysis and correspondence analysis. Results show that right-wing populism is capable of successfully appropriating religious symbols and setting the agenda for religious topics on social media, even challenging the authority of traditional religious authorities on their own ground. By attacking the Church, defending the religious sentiment of the people, and opposing Christian identity to Islam, religion is effectively integrated into the populist worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at exploring a case of information crisis in Italy through the lens of vaccination-related topics. Such a controversial issue, dividing public opinion and political agendas, has received diverse information coverage and public policies over time in the Italian context, whose situation appears quite unique compared with other countries because of a strong media spectacularization and politicization of the topic. In particular, approval of the "Lorenzin Decree," increasing the number of mandatory vaccinations from 4 to 10, generated a nationwide debate that divided public opinion and political parties, triggering a complex informative crisis and fostering the perception of a social emergency on social media. This resulted in negative stress on lay publics and on the public health system. The study adopted an interdisciplinary framework, including political science, public relations, and health communication studies, as well as a mixed-method approach, combining data mining techniques related to news media coverage and social media engagement, with in-depth interviews to key experts, selected among researchers, journalists, and communication managers. The article investigates reasons for the information crisis and identifies possible solutions and interventions to improve the effectiveness of public health communication and mitigate the social consequences of misinformation around vaccination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, we have witnessed an online backlash against feminism (Menzies 2008). This backlash is mobilizing a loose confederacy of interconnected communities from more traditional men's rights activists (MRAs) to the new misogynistic techno-cultures of the Manosphere (Nagle 2015). Despite their differences, in all of these groups, feminism is reconfigured as intrinsically prejudicial and threatening towards men (Blais, Dupuis-Déri 2012) and labelled as nothing more than misandry (Marwick, Caplan 2018). The use of misandry as synonym for «man-hating» serves both misogynist subcultures and more moderate men's rights interests, in that it allows these groups to appropriate the language of identity politics in order to place men as the silenced victims of a reverse discrimination in every political, economic, and social arena (Savran 1992; Farrell 1993) and reinforce their sense of aggrieved entitlement (Kimmel 2015). Situating their belief system in a social vacuum that fails to consider intersecting social dynamics, MRAs construct an over-simplified cultural model of the social world that isolates practices and phenomena that they believe are uniquely harmful to men (Schmitz, Kazyak 2016). In this way, their anti-feminist rhetoric takes the form of a neoliberal and seemingly neutral strategy that avoids any analysis of structural inequalities in favour of a commonsense celebration of individual choice for women and men (Nicholas, Agius 2018). This «pro-male» anti-feminism (Ging 2017) is indicative of a wider complex backlash (McRobbie 2004) that both accepts some of the precepts of feminism such as the principle of liberal equality, alongside a strong rejection of feminism as a label and political project. Given the theoretical framework outlined above, the general aim of this study is to explore the Italian MRA and Manosphere online network to take stock of the current situation and the risk it represents for feminism. More precisely, the study aims to unveil some of the key drivers of anti-feminist ideologies and will be guided by the following questions: which representations of feminism and feminists emerge in Italian online communities and how they spark criticism of feminism? Is neoliberal feminism a specific target of this criticism? Are MRA and manosphere communities both represented online and, if so, how are they bound together? How does the Italian situation differ from the international one? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, robots, social robots and artificial intelligence have increasingly entered daily life, affirming their presence not only in traditional spheres such as industrial production, but also gaining access to social reproduction, expressive functions and domestic activities. Considering the social relevance robots have now acquired, this essay aims at investigating their cultural representations in Italian online news media. More specifically, the study investigates trends of robot-related topics in online newspaper coverage and Facebook engagement over time, and analyzes news topics through text mining techniques. The study relies on a dataset of about 3,000 news stories published between 2014 and 2018 by some 100 different Italian news media. Results show a constant increase in news relating to robots, a major interest in work issues and a thematic shift over time: more recent topics describe the socialreproduction functions of robots. Finally, some suggestions for future research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Veganism is a revolutionary practice, since it calls into question deep Western philosophical assumptions about the human right to exploit animals. However, veganism as a counter-cultural and ethical practice, is today accompanied by the spread of a more mainstream, health-oriented and selfinterested "vegan diet". Thus, "veganism" is now stretched between opposite values. The press, galvanized by the growing popularity of veganism and vegan diet, participates in the process of their cultural construction. Previous researches on the representation of veganism in the English and Australian press have shown the prevalence of negative characterizations of the movement. In this study I explore the Italian journalistic discourse about veganism between 2005 and 2015, evaluating the applicability of the categories already developed by Cole and Morgan (2011), and also considering the press representation of veganism in relation with ethical, healthy and environmental values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]