How Civil Society Can Help Civil Society,

In this paper I’ll try to describe an experiment of communication through the information and communication technologies (ICTs), which is still in progress in Palermo (I) . On November 2003 four institutions of civil society founded the Telematic Portal for the communication of the “third sector” in Palermo (the Portal), in order to promote the visibilization of the pro-social activities carried out by the PSOs. First, I’ll try to describe the social nature and the composition of the “third sector” in Italy. I’ll also point out the PSOs’ need to communicate within the “mediated” public sphere. Secondly, I’ll show the first results reached by a research-action on the communication activities of the Sicilian PSOs carried out by a team of sociologists of the University of Palermo as a part of a national network of several Italian universities working on the “third sector” and the social capital in Italy (Donati and Colozzi (eds.), 2004). Finally, I’ll describe the Portal and the role of the “communication account”, a new figure who may give some help to the “third sector” in its efforts to communicate better.