Giochi di significato, visibilità e infomediazione: i sentieri interrotti della comunicazione oggi

The article proposes the notion of infomediation as an useful tool for empirical sociological research on the role that new social subjects play today in web communication. After a brief illustration of the contribution of the social sciences for the analysis of the effects and practices of media technologies, especially about the agenda building of the public sphere, the paper describes some examples of the infomediation phenomenon. It assumes from the literature the hypothesis that new technological oligarchic élites are constituting, with strong relationships with other types of élites. Finally, it shows some results and methodological suggestions of a few first empirical researches on the role of Google or Twitter for the newsmaking practices of information.