Abstract:

The contribution is part of a wide research program on migratory experiences and discourse, articulated in “field” and “multi-media” studies.
The media studies are aimed at reconstructing the “multi-voices” and “multi-agents” discourses about the contemporary migratory phenomenon: a) the scientific discourse (by experts), b) the political-institutional discourse (by policy makers, political leaders, institutions, NGO, etc.), c) the social discourse by journalists; d) the discourse “for” or “by” lay people.

The research material of the multi-media studies includes 6127 sources (as September 9, 2019) - currently increasing with new waves of data collection - based on:
a) the international scientific literature, inspired by the social representations theory and other theories in social sciences;
b) the discourse driven by or leading the institutional policies (at national and supranational level);
c) the discourse by “journalists” in the Italian online press of different political orientation (La Repubblica, Il Fatto Quotidiano, Il Mattino, Libero) and broadcast (SKY Tg24);
d) the communication “for” and “among” the citizens in the various scenarios of the social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube).

Systematic content, thematic and statistical analyses are based on multidimensional analysis supported by multiple software (IRAMUTEQ for Descending Hierarchical Classification and Specificities and Correspondence Analysis, SPAD for Correspondence Analysis, GraphColl for Network Analysis, Analysis of images and Videos, Sentiment Analysis, etc.).

A selection of the results from the media studies will be presented regarding the communication “for” and “among” the citizens in various scenarios of the social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube).

The results selected for this contribution will provide the reconstruction of the social discourse about “immigration-migration” through multiple social media, transversally obtained by multidimensional analyses conducted on 4118 sources related to international and national sources regarding the period 2013-2018, characterised by the different geo-political governmental scenarios: 1958 posts from Twitter, 1197 from Facebook, 456 from Instagram and 507 from YouTube. Cross-results through the four social media show empirical evidence of the consistency of the highly polarised discourse depending on the ideological political positioning of the multi-voices and multi-agents social actors.

The educational relevance of the study based on the construction of a “hot” societal issue through different social networks is in line with recent acquisitions of the “cyber-psychology”. The reflection of the psychology of new media underlines how the hybrid nature of social networks makes them both opportunities and problems in co-building, spreading and sharing knowledge.

This study contributes to educational benefits by providing empirical evidence about the dynamics between communicative engineering and creation/manipulation of the social consensus. It may improve awareness about the role played by the social media as powerful “echo chamber” of the institutional and political discourse leading to opposite inclusive/exclusive policies, and as the environment where it takes place the negotiation and development of polemical social representations around the theme of immigration.

Keywords:

Social media, multi-agents discourse, immigration, polarised social representations, ideological and political positioning.