From Italy with love: Narratives of expat political engagement in a corpus of Italian media outlets

Political participation of non-resident citizens in their country of origin has become a common practice around the world. The enfranchisement of Italians abroad has allowed the participation of non-resident citizens in the general elections since 2006 (twelve MPs and six Senators). Over the years, electoral results in the foreign constituency have generated an increasing interest within media outlets in Italy due to the impact of the votes in the national elections. The aim of the paper is to understand the way in which Italian newspapers have portrayed the political engagement of Italians living abroad one month before and after the 2018 elections. The paper analyses the narratives offered by these media outlets by means of a specialized corpus composed of Italian online newspapers. Starting from the corpus-based analysis of a selection of terms related to expats, relevant discourse patterns are uncovered showing attitudes and stances towards Italians abroad and their political engagement.