Informative Contagion: The Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Italian journalism

The spreading of new Coronavirus in addition to becoming a global phenomenon, following the declaration of a pandemic state, has generated excessive access to information, phenomenon named “Infodemia” (Cinelli et al., 2020). The general purpose of the exploratory study is to investigate how the coronavirus situation is described from the journalistic communication. Starting from La Repubblica online, as a reference journalistic magazine, the study assumes that if the circulation of information helps to create a social representation of the phenomenon, the excessive accessibility to sources of information (infodemia) can be modulated by the “how” the phenomenon is described by the journalists. The methodology proposed is quanti-qualitative (mixed method). A Content Analysis (Mayring, 2004) with the SketchEngine software (Thomas, 2016) is carried out first. In support, a Diatextual Analysis (Papapicco & Mininni, 2019) was carried out. The results show the presence of the contrast vision about COVID-19 situation in Italy

Google Mini: Italian Example of Artificial Prosociality

Prosociality is a social and individual virtue, which evokes mixed feelings in the modern world. Generally, prosociality behavior is defined as “actions taken for the benefit of one or more other persons” (Wispe, 1972). The Digital Revolution and the birth of artificial intelligence, such as the Google Mini, allowed the transition from elitist experience to mass experience. The study has an exploratory function and starts from the Man-AI interaction, in a provocative and oppositional conversational context created by the Human Being. In the research, it is hypothesized, therefore, that the synthesis of the artificial voice does not allow to characterize all the facets of the tone and the emotionality of the prosociality. As a result, Artificial Intelligence is programmed to always respond in a “gentle” way, putting in place different facets of prosociality, which are well detected in the emotionality and prosodic analysis, above all in the recognition of “pitch” speech pattern. While emotional tone analysis confirms the “understanding” of reading the communicative context of Artificial Intelligence. Among future perspectives it is highlighted how the study of these vocal patterns of artificial prosociality can be a springboard for research on bullying, using the Google Mini Prosocial tool

To be a TikToker in COVID-19 Era: An Experience of Social Influence

Social networks are able to interface technological innovation and communication with sociality, thus redesigning the forms, practices, purposes of access and its relationship with everyday life, especially at a time when technology becomes the only way to feel part of a social group, like the COVID-19 period. The general objective of the research is to understand the experience of fruition of the social network Tiktok in the sample of participants, heterogeneous and representative of the reference population. The aim is to assess how the user or the entire social group lives the experience of the social because it is assumed that the result of the above experience can become a new form of social influence. The study aims to answer the following research questions: 1. How do people experience this new social media? 2. Is fun the new form of social influence? The methodology used is quantum-qualitative. It is, in fact, proposed first a Netnographic Analysis of observation and description of the social, and then use an automatic Content Analysis supported by Diatextual Analysis (the qualitative part). The results allow to theorize a different form of social influence, or “fun”, which becomes characteristic of the social network and the period

The intergenerational memory of a cultural heritage as a means of promoting citizens’ sense of community

Community psychology increasingly emphasizes the importance of cultural heritage, especially in local communities. This study suggests that the reconstruction of autobiographical memory associated with cultural heritage can become a resource for consolidating a sense of community. Therefore, we have highlighted the link between memory recall and a sense of community through which it is possible to observe how memory recall can be a means of giving positive meaning to one’s membership. The study focuses on San Cesario in Lecce in southeastern Italy, an Apulian local community known for its archaeological industrial heritage, i.e., its distilleries. The participants of the study were 29 citizens of San Cesario of different gender and age, who were interviewed. The transcription of the interviews was followed by a content analysis in which the evoked dimensions of the sense of community and the types of memory, such as place or autobiographical ones, were noted. The results showed that intergenerational memory of cultural heritage can be a way of renewing the meanings associated with feelings of belonging to a local community, but also a way of recovering conflicted and ambivalent memories in order to promote psychosocial empowerment

Artificial Kindness The Italian Case of Google Mini Recognition Patterns

Kindness is a pro-social virtue, which evokes mixed feelings in the modern world. In Western culture, for example, kindness is always positive, but elitist. The Digital Revolution and the birth of artificial intelligence, such as the Google Mini, allowed the transition from elitist experience to mass experience. The study has an exploratory function and starts from the Man-AI interaction, in a provocative and oppositional conversational context created by the Human Being. In the research, it is hypothesized, therefore, that the synthesis of the artificial voice does not allow to characterize all the facets of the tone and the emotionality of the kindness. As a result, Artificial Intelligence is programmed to always respond in a “gentle” way, putting in place different facets of kindness, which are well detected in the emotionality and prosodic analysis, above all in the recognition of “pitch” speech pattern. While emotional tone analysis confirms the “understanding” of reading the communicative context of Artificial Intelligence. Among future perspectives it is highlighted how the study of these vocal patterns of artificial kindness can be a springboard for research on bullying, using the Google Mini Kindness tool

Google Mini: Italian Example of Artificial Prosociality

Prosociality is a social and individual virtue, which evokes mixed feelings in the modern world. Generally, prosociality behavior is defined as “actions taken for the benefit of one or more other persons” (Wispe, 1972). The Digital Revolution and the birth of artificial intelligence, such as the Google Mini, allowed the transition from elitist experience to mass experience. The study has an exploratory function and starts from the Man-AI interaction, in a provocative and oppositional conversational context created by the Human Being. In the research, it is hypothesized, therefore, that the synthesis of the artificial voice does not allow to characterize all the facets of the tone and the emotionality of the prosociality. As a result, Artificial Intelligence is programmed to always respond in a “gentle” way, putting in place different facets of prosociality, which are well detected in the emotionality and prosodic analysis, above all in the recognition of “pitch” speech pattern. While emotional tone analysis confirms the “understanding” of reading the communicative context of Artificial Intelligence. Among future perspectives it is highlighted how the study of these vocal patterns of artificial prosociality can be a springboard for research on bullying, using the Google Mini Prosocial tool

Impact memes: PhDs HuMor(e)

The era of User Generated Content (USG) on Social Networks has invested different areas of human experience, including one of the highest levels of education, i.e., the PhD grade. As regards the opportunity to “imitate” a virtual content, the phenomenon of Memes (Shifman, J Vis Cult 13(3):340–358, 56) is spreading. The present research aims at the understanding how the online functions and practices of humor signification are featured considering linguistic and visual aspects. In particular it has a twofold goals: a) analyzing which differences emerged in terms of functions and emotions between humor in PhD Memes on Facebook and Instagram by means of ‘diatextual’ analysis; b) performing a fine-grained qualitative analysis about rethorical aspects based on linguistic and visual elements of Phd Memes in order to contribute to the field of humor automatic detection. To satisfy these purposes, 70 memes about the PhD on Facebook and Instagram were collected and, then, analyzed in two levels: (1) the quanti-qualitative, aiming to detect the semi-automatic emotional involvement, expression of humor in “meme discourses”; (2) the semiotic analysis of meme images. The results highlight first of all typical cases of incongruences in automatic and diatextual analysis in coding the effective emotions; furthermore they also show the peculiar function of humor, mediated by communication through memes, which is mainly a kind of ‘emotional sharing’ consisting in the complaint against a complex and precarious career path; in addition some differences in relation to the type of social media (Facebook or Instagram) are reported

Twitter culture: irony comes faster than tourist mobility

Recent developments in the research field of the tourism sciences show a growing interest in customer satisfaction. Increasingly mediated communications develop new signification practices within social networks, as Twitter, where tourism companies discover what users think of the service offered, through methodologies such as Sentiment Analysis [Pang, B., & Lee, L. (2008). Opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Foundations and Trends® in Information Retrieval, 2(1–2), 1–135] and digital natives [Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–6] produce short textual content regarding the service of tourist companies, as in the case of Trenitalia. From the analysis of sentiment on tweets about Trenitalia, it emerged that Internet users tend to employ ironic devices, difficult to recognize by a software tool. Starting from this limit, the main intent is to examine how social networks offer a new context to the enunciative practice of irony. To detect these aspects, the thinking aloud technique is used, aiming to understand how digital actors re-build signification practices of tourist mobility and to demonstrate how online reputation and customer satisfaction detection systems are not always effective in understanding why users, when they review a tourist service, use veiled communication methods

Adolescents’ Vulnerability to Fake News and to Racial Hoaxes: A Qualitative Analysis on Italian Sample

Following the Digital Revolution, we are witnessing an increase in the number of manipulated sources of information. For this reason, virtual environments can be a breeding ground for the proliferation of prejudices and stereotypes, resulting from the spread of racial fallacious news, known as ‘racial hoaxes’. Adolescents may be more susceptible due to the tense and complicated relationship between their experience with digital platforms and the development of their relatively limited critical thinking. In this landscape, in order to explore the features of disinformation in adolescence, the research involved 41 Italian adolescents between 13 and 16 years old, balanced by gender and school education. The teenagers took part in the focus group discussions on the topic of online information preferences, fake news and racial hoaxes, which were analyzed by means of content analysis. The answers given by participants show a so-called adolescents’ perception of ‘misinformation invulnerability’ that can influence their credulity in fake news, since they are aware of fake news but they are not so able to recognize or remember it

Adolescents' Vulnerability to Fake News and to Racial Hoaxes: A Qualitative Analysis on Italian Sample

Following the Digital Revolution, we are witnessing an increase in the number of manipulated sources of information. For this reason, virtual environments can be a breeding ground for the proliferation of prejudices and stereotypes, resulting from the spread of racial fallacious news, known as 'racial hoaxes'. Adolescents may be more susceptible due to the tense and complicated relationship between their experience with digital platforms and the development of their relatively limited critical thinking. In this landscape, in order to explore the features of disinformation in adolescence, the research involved 41 Italian adolescents between 13 and 16 years old, balanced by gender and school education. The teenagers took part in the focus group discussions on the topic of online information preferences, fake news and racial hoaxes, which were analyzed by means of content analysis. The answers given by participants show a so-called adolescents' perception of 'misinformation invulnerability' that can influence their credulity in fake news, since they are aware of fake news but they are not so able to recognize or remember it