Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

Descrizione del progetto

This project deals with digitalization among Italian political parties. The spread of digital media such as blogs, social media platforms, mobile apps, and interactive websites has stimulated both the emergence of the so-called digital party, Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), and the gradual digitalization of the traditional mainstream parties. Bringing together the scholarly literature on political communication and political parties, this project aims to fill an important gap in the literature by integrating the digital dimension into the analysis of party organizations. By analyzing data at national and subnational levels, this project aims to provide a detailed understanding of the impact that digitalization has had on parties’ structure and functions so far. More specifically, the five main Italian parties of the current (XVIII) parliamentary term are observed: Forza Italia, Fratelli d’Italia, Lega, M5S, and Partito Democratico. We address the following issues: a) the extent to which Italian political parties use digital technologies; b) the differences and similarities between and within parties across country regions; c) the changing role of party members in the light of the spread of digital technologies; d) how and how much digitalization has affected the linkages between national and subnational party organizations; e) how and how much digitalization has influenced the relationships between elected representatives, party members, and middle-level elites; and f) whether digital technologies have enhanced intraparty democracy or rather fostered plebiscitary drives. We address these issues through both synchronic and diachronic comparison employing both quantitative and qualitative data. With this project, we will produce a systematic overview of the state of digitization among Italian political parties, generate an open license database of the actual state of party digitization, and evaluate the effects of digital tools on partisan actors at different party organization levels. Based on the collected empirical data, we intend to reframe our current understanding of Italian party organizations, spelling out the effects of digital tools on their organizational, participation, and communication strategies. By doing so, this project will attempt to significantly advance the scholarly literature on political parties, which has largely overlooked the impacts of digitization. We will disseminate the results on a project website; in the database mentioned above; in academic publications; and through intense participation in international and national conferences and engagement with media, consultants, and professionals.