Giovani, nuovi media e percorsi di orientamento nello spazio pubblico

This article presents the results of a survey that set out to reconstruct the relationship between young people, media usage and public space. Care was taken to move beyond the limits inherent in the concept of political participation, which does not necessarily offer the most effective angle for analysing the ways in which young citizens perceive and experience this relationship, which may not be one of engagement , in the arena of public discourse. We used in-depth interviews to identify the strategies young people adopt within multiple communication environments: family and the home, traditional and digital media, paying particular attention to social media. We classified the ways in which they access and process information, based on different levels of selectivity and different kinds of activity in the digital environment. We investigated some of the dynamics of opinion leadership, both interpersonal and media-related, and observed various interesting phenomena regarding the fusion of the diverse discourses that exercise an influence on a cross-media level, and that become orientation agents in public space. This takes place in the family, the education experience and friendship networks. Another significant factor was the emergence of public figures whose discourses cross and connect different media universes, from television to social media (such as Pope Francis, the leader of the Northern League Party Matteo Salvini, the writer Roberto Saviano and the singer Madonna). The issue of migration stands out as the most recent, most significant dividing line in youth civic culture.