La comunicazione politica social alla prova della distanza sociale

Il caso della campagna elettorale pugliese del 2020

Abstract

The administrative and regional elections of 20 and 21 September 2020, and the constitutional referendum on the cut in the number of parliamentarians, were the first electoral tests for Italian politics, in the era of Covid-19.This paper aims to analyze the social communication of the three main candidates for the presidency of the Puglia Region during the election campaign period. The objective of the analysis is to detect if and how the pandemic has shaped the forms and contents of the online electoral campaign. Social media are today a fundamental environment for political communication. It is customary for a character to use his social account not only as a showcase - a widespread approach in the first phase of rapprochement between the web and Italian politics - but as a direct and privileged communication channel with users, whose engagement is sought. In a context in which all social relations in general have undergone a drastic downsizing, the candidates have relied above all on social communication to get closer to the Apulian voters. From this fact emerged the questions that guided the analysis in question and to which we will try to answer in the following pages: What were the peculiarities of the candidates' social political communication? What role did the pandemic play in their narration?