(Nearly) Ten Years of Social Media and Political Elections in Italy: Questions, Platforms, and Methods

Author(s)
Luca Rossi, Nicola Righetti, Giada Marino
Abstract

In this article, we reconstruct the academic discourse surrounding social media and elections in an Italian context. We follow Neumayer and Rossi’s conceptualization of academic discourse concerning political protest and digital technology as constructed out of three components: (a) the social phenomena under investigation, (b) technological development, and (c) methods and techniques. In the context of social media and elections, these three components may be identified as (a) the research questions that researchers seek to answer, (b) the social media platforms and data used for the analysis, and (c) the methods adopted to analyze the data. While these three dimensions are deeply intertwined, we argue that, when analyzed independently, it is possible to better see both the longitudinal evolution of each dimension and their interdependencies.

Organisation(s)
Department of Communication
External organisation(s)
IT University of Copenhagen, Università degli Studi di Sassari
Journal
Social Media + Society
Volume
7
Pages
1-13
No. of pages
13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211063460
Publication date
12-2021
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508007 Communication science, 508020 Political communication
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Cultural Studies, Communication, Computer Science Applications
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/nearly-ten-years-of-social-media-and-political-elections-in-italy-questions-platforms-and-methods(33ce284e-f69c-4a80-8b66-277bda0f6b10).html