1. At the boundaries of public sphere:
content analysis of Italian poli6cians'
most popular Facebook pages
Fabio [.] Giglie.o [@uniurb.it]
Mario [.] Orefice [@uniurb.it]
University of Urbino, Italy

2. Research Ques<on…
Can Web 2.0 applications and, in particular,
Facebook represent a breeding ground for
the creation of a relationship between citizens
and politicians able to give back meaning and
value to traditional concept of representative
democracy?

3. Theore<cal background 1/2
Debacle of governments and political action in Western countries
seems to emerge as a result of a general mistrust in political
institutions including political parties.
- gradual loss of representative and democratic mission;
- from social agencies of mediation between interests of civil
society and governmental institutions to lobbies fighting for
positions of responsibility and political/economical prestige;
- establishment of precise equivalence between dynamics of
membership and processes of co-optation imposed from above;
- disappearance of traditional forms of identification (values,
symbols) and efficient (structures, policies) representation;
- from party to leader (Pizzorno 1983, Della Porta 1996)

4. Theore<cal background 2/2
Dutiful Citizenship (D.C)
• obligation to participate in government centered activities;
• voting is the core democratic act;
• information by following mass media;
• joins civil society organizations and/or expresses interests through parties
Self-Actualizing Citizenship (S.A.C)
• less sense of government obligation - higher sense of individual goals;
• voting is less meaningful than other, more personally defined acts such as
consumerism, community volunteering, or transnational activism;
• mistrust of media and politicians is reinforced by negative mass media
environment;
• favors loose networks of community action often established or sustained through
friendships and peer relations and maintained by interactive information
technologies
(Bennett 2008, Dahlgren 2006)

5. Methodology
- Among Facebook pages of Italian politicians, we’ve selected top ten with the highest
number of likes;
- Underlying assumption is based on positive correlation between number of likes and on
line/off line popularity;
- We chose top ten politicians:
1) to have accurate knowledge about them in order to connect analyzed items to the
socio- political off line environment,
2) it was believed to be more likely to find a wide range of relevant contents;
- Coding and Analysis made with Discovertext;
- Data Time frame from 09/26/2011 to 06/25/2011
- Each dataset was coded according to our coding scheme based on four independent macro-
variables (support, action, organization, representation) articulated in 39 coding keys.

6. Methodology: bugs & limits 1/2
Politicians fan pages have been taken into account when users
where suposed to like the pages in order to comment on them.
This seems to have produced, at least, three limitations:
- High disproportion between number of active users and average
of likes;
- inability to investigate individual motivations that prompted users
to join politician’s fan page, except, when they are directly
expressed;
- difficulties in finding and highlight precise correspondences
between citizens, voters and fans

7. Methodology: bugs & limits 2/2
If, on one hand, D.T is an effective tool to encode on line contents,
on the other hand, it seems to show few limitations. Among them:
- discontinuities in loading contents within datasets. This problem
emerges with greater clarity with time spans referred to past
- does not allow to define taxonomies. This creates confusion in
identification of appropriate keys and loss in terms of coding time
- limitations in exporting large datasets
- frequent maintenance periods which disable the use of some
features

8. Name/Surname Political role Likes Loaded Encoded Items
Items
Giuliano Pisapia Opposition 115.5586 1906 226 (11,86%)
Matteo Renzi Opposition 77.119 5774 222 (4,2%)
Nichi Vendola Opposition 519.247 3425 252 (7,42%)
Vincenzo De Opposition 80.295 2374 251 (10,57%)
Luca
Antonio Di Opposition 252.306 9269 252 (2,8%)
Pietro
Antonio De Opposition 277.434 14.982 255 (0,9%)
Magistris
Rita Levi Opposition 167.416 168 168 (100%)
Montalcini
Name/Surname Political role Likes Loaded Encoded
Items Items
Silvio Berlusconi Government 320.900 225 225 (100%)
Renato Brunetta Government 77,882 43 43 (100%)
Maria Stella Government 64.928 5403 210 (4,1%)
Gelmini
Pol. Role Tot. Items Cod. Items
Government 5720 478 (8,4%)
Opposition 22920 1626 (7,1%)

9. Main findings: (Call to) Ac<on
- Government politicians call to action from their formal role: institutional call to
action that refers often to political (national or international) actors.
- Within their pages there are no references to non-institutional actors (NGO, third
sector, etc)
- The main communicative strategy is broadcasting-type (one to many)
- Opposition politicians may use an informal communication style
- Dialogical relationship among the politicians and their wider electoral base
(including non political actors like NGOs)
- More symmetrical communication strategy with their supporters (peer relationship)

10. “After Council of Ministers, I’m going to Parliament in order to express my position on
the arrest’s request ordered for Mr. Milanese”
(Silvio Berlusconi’s wall, admin., n. 6/212 coded items)
“Council of Ministers shall be convened for September 22, at 9 am. Among the
agenda items: preliminary examination of two decrees on investment in public
works and monitoring procedures on implementation of employment”
(Silvio Berlusconi’s wall, admin., n. 9/212 coded items)
“A weekend full of events is coming to Florence…Run for Life (there’s still vacancies,
hurry up!), table tennis tournaments, Festival of Green Energy, electric cars
available……a rare opportunity to clean up the town. And the opening of
Lungarno Santa Rosa’s public garden. A personal promises to neighborhood’s
mothers is the construction of a playground suitable for children. Because
promises must be kept: this is the profound difference from usual politics…”
(Mayor of Florence - Matteo Renzi’s wall, admin., n. 162/222 coded items)
“Finally I believe that a site in which develop a concrete alternative to the
government in charge is possible only if we listen to this square and the hundred
squares of students of past days. If we are not able to keep in touch with them,
answer is simple: do not exist a site for innovation”
(Leader of Left Party - Nichi Vendola’s wall, admin., n. 240/252 coded items)

11. Main findings: (private) poli<cal
- In governmental politicians pages there are many references to private life rose
by users.
- These seem to be part of a wider protest’s repertoire:
- Orthodox verbal aggressions, no rational arguments, against politicians as
individuals
- General negative judgments against the entire political class (anti-politics)
- Claiming aimed at claiming specific rights for users/groups
- In the opposition ones private life seems to be used as part of communication
strategy in order to:
- Set up a relationship with non political actors;
- Depict the politician as a honest citizen;
- Depict the politician as “one of us”;
- This kind of communication try to realize what has been defined as Productive
Protest (Melucci 1984)

12. “You’re a complete disaster…..resign and leave your job to someone more
intelligent!!!”
(Maria Stella Gelmini’s wall, fan, n. 200/210 coded items)
“Research project which has led to discovery of faster than light neutrinos is not
Italian, it comes from abroad…..if you want to be a decent minister you need to
study more…..Italian government have cut off all funds for research….while
your boss is interested only in prostitutes and parties!!!….You’re the shame of
our country!!!!”
(Maria Stella Gelmini’s wall, fan, n.177/210 coded items)
“Opposition should resign because the government will never give up!!!!….in this
way, president Napolitano will be forced to dismiss both the Houses of
Parliament!!!….do it if you care about Italy and Italians…..show people that you
are not there just for the seat!!!!”
(Antonio Di Pietro’s wall, fan, n. 237/252 coded teims)
“About New Traffic Plan: I don’t like it cause some measures lead to isolation of city
centre. I think there’s a lot of design errors….public transportation should be
enhanced and completed. Even with night rides, inside and outside the city,
perhaps taking advantage of European funding for electric shuttles. In addition,
should be created large and affordable parking areas”
(Luigi De Magistris’s wall, fan, n. 137/255 coded items)

13. Main findings: seNng the agenda
- In governmental politicians seem to be actualized
an agenda imposed from above: low level of
interaction, high level of internal links (linking to
official sources), low level of discussions both
vertical (between politician and their supporters) and
horizontal (among supporters)
- In opposition politicians agenda seems to emerge
from the interaction with online users: high level of
status updates; high level of external links, many
discussions both vertical and horizontal

14. “Hi Antonio, I’m from Rome and I’m 32. You’re the only politician I trust. In
this country, like Mafia knows very well, any person who attempts to
change this corrupted system or wrong traditions always becomes target
of offences and insinuations that may obscure his credibility and his
proposals for change….the question is: what do you think about it?
….you can reply me via mail or here…”
(Antonio Di Pietro’s wall, fan, n. 235/252 coded items)
“Dear new major, if I was you, I would think to reduce public expenses
rather than to increasing them. First of all, beginning with a reduction of
costs for local government and/or diminishing contributions for those
who don’t need….or requiring the payment of taxes for those who
usually does not pay them!!…”
(Giuliano Pisapia’s wall, fan, n. 199/226 coded items)

15. Conclusions 1/2
• Government’s politicians tend to manage their presence on
Facebook in order to reproduce and preserve the status quo
acquired off line
• Develop low volume of (in)direct interactions
• Often structured according to a mainstream, informational,
instrumental communicative paradigm
• It is almost totally lacking the will to establish communicative
relationships with fans. This explains, at least, the occurrence
of violent/negative behaviors aimed at discrediting the image
of politician

16. Conclusions 2/2
• Political opposition tend more often to customize platform’s tools and
features, trying to re-think them in order to establish an authentic
relationship with fans and share/revise their in progress policy proposals
• Facebook, therefore, is considered more as a laboratory for experimenting
new languages rather than a mere tool/informational gate
• This seems to result in prevalence of a positive dialectic geared towards
building a narrative based on shared identity
• Some of these attitudes can find their raison d'etre both in low age of
opposition’s members (all belonging to the center-left) and in greater
willingness to accept cultural innovation as starting point to construct new
paradigms (political, social, communicative)
• Seems hard to go beyond a merely quantitative meaning of digital
popularity

17. Some research proposals
for the future…
• Get on with coding and try to expand it both to other fan pages and online
environments (Twitter, Google plus, official websites, blogs);
• Achieve a definition able to understand and recognize differences among
political, anti political and non political actions on line
• Re-think macro-nodes to develop a more comprehensive analytical grid
• Focus on to the widespread expression of anti-political attitudes within
official politicians facebook pages
• Identify efficient and effective tools to carry on content analysis of on line
conversations

18. Thanks for your a.en<on!
Mario Orefice
PhD candidate
mario.orefice@uniurb.it