Citizen

journalism, social movements and the

blogosphere: An Italian case study.

By Marta Del Buono - Student Number 150041477

MA International Journalism - City University, London

Department of Journalism

Supervisor: Michael Bromley

October 2016

Abstract
The increased political influence of the Five Stars Movement in Italy and its founder Beppe
Grillo have been analysed by several scholars and researchers in the last few years. The main
theoretical approaches applied to the phenomenon are mainly based on a sociological and
political communication grounds. The present paper investigates the discursive practices of
the blog of Beppe Grillo regarding the NO TAV issue in its Battles section. It also evaluates the
types and the frequency of citizen journalism practices within the entries of the blog in
relation to the chosen topic. The analysis has been based on the perspective of Critical
Discourse Analysis and framing analysis. The purpose of this work is to add a journalistic
perspective of analysis to the study of Grillo and the Five Stars Movement. A historical, social
and political background is provided in accordance to the Critical Discourse Analysis
approach and a linguistic analysis has been discussed at the end of the study.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to thank my dissertation supervisor Professor Michael Bromley of the
Department of Journalism at City University London. He supported me in the first stages of my
work and he consistently understood my personal limits and encouraged me to keep working
on my research.

I would also like to thank my tutor Julia Pairman from the Learning Support Centre at City
University London. She supported me all way through the academic year until the last stages
of this work with passion and participation. She gave me priceless inputs to organise the
information flow of this study and encouraged me to never give up.

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude and love to my parents, sister and to my
partner for providing me with boundless support and continuous encouragement throughout
my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis. This
achievement would not have been possible without them. Thank you.

This paper is dedicated to Dalia, for having shown me the never-ending path of selfdevelopment, and to my mentor in life, for having taught me that anything is possible.


Marta Del Buono

Table of contents


1. Abbreviations list - Pag.6
2. Index of Tables Pag.7
3. Introduction Pag.8
4. Literature review Pag.11
5. Theoretical framework Pag.14
5.1 Linguistic analysis perspectives - Pag.19
6. Case study Background - Pag.23
6.1 Socio political context of Italy - Pag.23
6.2 Beppe Grillo - Pag.25
6.3 www.beppegrillo.it - Pag.27
6.4 Five Stars Movement - Pag.29
7. Methodology - Pag.32
8. Analysis - Pag.33
9. Discussion - Pag.37
10. Conclusion - Pag.41
11. Bibliography- Pag.43

Abbreviations list

CDA - critical discourse analysis

CJ - citizen journalism

ICT - information communication technologies

M5S (Moviemento 5 Stelle) Five Stars Movement

RQ research question

UGC - users generated content

Index of Tables

Table 1 - Number of posts per year - Pag.33

Table 2 Authors of the blog entries - Pag.34

Table 3 Main themes of the entries - Pag.35

Table 4 Digital intertextuality level of the entries - Pag.35

Table 5 Multimedia elements of the entries - Pag.36

Table 6 Main themes and uses of the commentary section - Pag.37

Introduction
With the increase of the Five Stars Movements influence (Movimento 5 Stelle M5S) in the
Italian political environment several scholars have been studying its political strategies and
type of organisation over the last few years. The M5S is a product of the Web 2.0 (Watson
2011) combined with the civic engagement attitude of a consistent portion of Italian citizens
since 2005. The main trigger of this movement was Beppe Grillos blog, which gathered many
different movements and citizens under the same entity. Beppe Grillo is an Italian comedian,
political activist and blogger who is know to the public since the late 1970s.

Grillo, after having encouraged the creation of a concrete network of local communities

and groups through the Meetup1 platform in 20052, presented on his blog the non-statute3
of what he called the M5S at the end of 20094. The movement gained momentum in the 2012
local elections and in the 2013 national elections (Natale & Ballatore 2014: 106) becoming the
second largest political force in Italy at the present moment.

Beppe Grillos blog was not always a political entity, but was initially born as virtual

public space where people could share experiences and information about their local realities
and problems, they also could get information about Grillos shows and performances and buy
his DVDs and books. The information feature surpassed the promotional aspect since the
beginning of the blog experience and its role as additional and independent media
accountability system (Tomaszeski et al. 2009: 76) in the media landscape grew up to the
point to win some significant awards. The newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore awarded the blog with the
WWW prize5 in 2005 for the category news and information and The Observer6 rated it at
ninth place of the 50 most powerful blogs in 2008.

As highly interactive media, the blog attracted a huge flow of traffic and users began

sharing opinions, comments on social issue, organising civic protests and delivering
alternative information about local and national policies. The new emerging function of
organisational tool of the web was the springboard to establish the M5S concretisation, which
connected different local realities in a single place.

1 https://www.meetup.com/

2 Post in which the platform was presented: http://www.beppegrillo.it/2005/07/incontriamoci_m_1.html

3 http://www.beppegrillo.it/iniziative/movimentocinquestelle/Regolamento-Movimento-5-Stelle.pdf
2 Post in which the platform was presented: http://www.beppegrillo.it/2005/07/incontriamoci_m_1.html
3 http://www.beppegrillo.it/iniziative/movimentocinquestelle/Regolamento-Movimento-5-Stelle.pdf
4 http://www.beppegrillo.it/2009/09/comunicato_politico_numero_venticinque.html
5 http://www.ilsole24ore.com/fc?cmd=art&artId=735797&chId=30
6 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs

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The predominance of its political activity led scholars to approach the study of this

phenomenon from a sociological perspective under the study of social movements and
political parties lenses. Just in later studies scholars turned their attention to the
communication aspect of the M5S with a particular focus on the political aspect of its
discourse construction. The more informative and journalistic features of the blog are mainly
overlooked so far especially that aspect concerning the citizen produced journalistic content.
Studies show how citizens actively engage in the production of content on the blog and it is
justifiable believing that among those contributions a sort of citizen journalism (CJ) could take
place.

The organisation of civic protests through Grillos blog, the political achievements and

the active involvement of its audience highlight the relationship between online politics, civic
movements, users generated content (UGC) and accessibility of information and more
generally web access.

This case study aims to foreground the CJ component on the blog of Beppe Grillo

analysing the general structure of the blog and a particular section in depth. The chosen area
is the NO TAV campaign, which initially was positioned on the Informati (Get Informed)
section and is now archived in the Battaglie (Battles) section.

Specific attention is given to the social, political and economical contexts in which the

blog operates from when it was established up to more recent periods. The overall analysis is
based on the content analysis of all the entries related to the NO TAV issue from the
perspective of the critical discourse analysis (CDA) and framing analysis, which involve a wide
and multidisciplinary approach.

CJ operates within blog, webpages and social media in order to provide information in

a direct and alternative manner. In Italy there are few examples of CJ experiences such as
Agora Vox7, the Italian version of Blasting news8 and Kappaelle9.

In order to detect the CJ component within Grillos blog, and in particular about the NO

TAV topic, the study will investigate the following six research questions:
RQ (1): Who are the authors and what are the main themes of the blog entries about the NO
TAV topic?
RQ (2): Which is the level of intertextuality of the entries of the blog about the NO TAV topic?

7 http://www.agoravox.it/

8 http://it.blastingnews.com/
9 http://news.kappaelle.net/mission/

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RQ (3): In what ways and to what extent do the readers use the commentary section on the
NO TAV section? Which are the most popular opinions and ideas of users on the commentary
section?
RQ (4): How does the blog entries and the comments frame the Italian political system the
and mainstream media system?
RQ (5): How is the alternative information system proposed on the blog posts of the NO TAV
section and how is constructed linguistically, semantically and discursively?
RQ (6): How much is present the CJ component on the blog entries and within the
commentary section?

In order to consider all the key elements that are involved in the CDA perspective this

study is divided in three parts. In the first part of this paper it will be introduced the available
knowledge and studies on the research field and then the most significant theoretical
concepts that inform the analysis. In second part it will be presented the main political,
economical and social background information in which the case study developed. The last
part of this study is dedicated to the presentation and analysis of the data and the main
conclusions drawn upon the findings.

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Literature review
In this section I shall present the most relevant studies and theoretical positions about the
Five Stars Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle - M5S)10 and its founder Beppe Grillo.
The attention to this widespread political movement, with a relatively recent history, began
around the last eight years with few studies with a remarkable sociological and political
science approaches inclination. In the last three years more studies have appeared with an
increased orientation to the communication aspect, especially concerning the political
communication strategies of the movement. Among the most noteworthy contributions there
is Corbetta and Gualminis publication (2013), which traces the political distribution of their
supporters on the national territory and it draws profiles of the M5Ss activists and their
relationship with the local dimension of the movement and the centre, namely Grillos blog
(Ibid.). They also present the historical development of the M5S from its initial stage of
collective movement to the political vocation of the late years (Corbetta & Gualmini 2013).
Another important scholar in media and communication studies who improved the
understanding of the M5S role is Lorenzo Mosca. With his extensive study on the cybercatic
organisational structure of the M5S and his study about social movements phenomenon in
Italy he widened the spectrum of the theoretical framework in this subjects field (Mosca
2002; Mosca 2011; Mosca 2013a; Mosca 2013b; Mosca 2014; Mosca 2015). Relating to the
M5S political culture it is notable the research of Antonio Putini (2016), which illustrates the
sociodemographic characteristics of the M5Ss activists identifying a strong populism
component in their political discourse. Reinforcing the populism notion, Roberto Borcio
identifies the main sociological reasons of the success of the M5S in Italy (Borcio 2013) and he
presents the collective protest rituals of the movement through their use of internet and local
meetup. Among the main reasons for M5S success that Borcio identifies there is firstly the
entrepreneur role of Grillo in taking the lead of the movement. Secondly there is the strategy
of construction of the movement starting from the web and progressively transferring this
network of relationships in offline communities. Last reason is the aggregation of different
local groups in one single political subject, which acts as aggregator and megaphone that
represents their needs to the government.

From a more explicit communication perspective just few studies have been produced

so far, the more interesting is Gallos analysis of the political communication strategies of M5S

10 For a more comprehensive list see: Corbetta P. and Gualmini E. (2013). Il Partito di Grillo. Bologna: il Mulino.
And: Mosca, L. (2011). I movimenti collettivi tra arene sociali e arena dei mass media. In Marini, R. La
comunicazione politica degli attori non partitici. Milano: Guerini. pp. 85-111.

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which clarifies in which thematic areas are distributed the blogs entries and traces the main
linguistic devices of their political discourse such as register, style and the messages
persuasiveness (Gallo 2014). Another contribution comes from Natale and Ballatore (2014),
which shows the cyber-utopianism component of the M5Ss message and the role of the web
in their communication strategies. I must also include another study of M5Ss communication
that through a multi-layered text discourse analysis underlines the main features of the
movements political language. Combining quantitative and a qualitative methodologies
Roman (2013) analyses the main entries themes of the blog, the level of interaction and
dialogue of the webpages and the content of the most popular comments written by users.
Roman statistics show that the majority of Grillos posts in 2012 were written by what she
called regular citizen (Roman 2013: 35). The last study that expanded the understanding of
this phenomenon is Bigis (2013) study about the level of readability of Grillos blog. He
identifies three different levels of readability in the lifespan of the blog related to three
different phases of the political engagement process of the movement. Bigi noticed an
increased difficulty in terms of readability of the blogs entries corresponding to the political
campaign period.

All these studies unearthed different aspects of the movement, from their civic

engagement forms to the types of political discourses. Almost unanimously the authors
detected a populist inclination of the blogs discourse, which this study will also explain
further in the text. Unfortunately these studies do not depict an exhaustive picture of the
phenomenon because the do not integrate the sociological, historical and political aspects to
the informative linguistic features. Among these studies just Bigi explicitly acknowledges a
shift from a blog about politics into a political blog in terms of communication style and
features (Bigi 2013: 211). None of them makes a direct connection about blog entries and
citizen journalism (CJ) forms of information, though Romans study reveals a conspicuous
contribution of regular citizens posts (Roman 2013: 35). Interestingly an important clue
comes directly from Grillo himself, who said the potential for more reliable and balanced
news is to be found in digital citizen journalism (Casaleggio & Grillo 2011: 95).

For the purpose of this study I shall lastly introduce one more contribution about

Beppe Grillos blog. Federico Gobbo in 2006 at the E-CAP conference (European conference on
Computing and Philosophy) in Norway mentioned Grillos blog as form of traditional opinion
journalism rather than citizen journalism (Gobbo 2006). This was an early observation of the
phenomenon in a period in which Grillos blog was not yet the movements showcase, but just
a blog that was calling for the active participation of citizens in narrating their stories and

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writing their thoughts. This type of journalistic considerations did not develop further in the
study field and subsequently were replaced by studies more rooted in sociological and
political ground. To understand the nature of the blogs communication strategies, especially
before the active political conversion, and the M5S at large I suggest to apply all levels of
analysis previously presented adding to them the CJ communicative practice lenses. This
methodology includes a framing analysis methodology combined with a textual analysis
approach based on the CDA assumption that in order to understand texts and their purposes
researchers should consider the social and cultural context in which are produced. In doing so
the blogs entries would take a more comprehensive context and would shift the focus from a
political communication perspective to a more journalistic communication analysis. This also
would acknowledge the importance given to the information aspect by the movement and
would clarify the meaning of some entries which are currently considered merely as political
strategies.

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Theoretical framework
In order to understand the citizen journalism (CJ) component in Grillos blog this study will
first introduce some sociological concepts that will inform the analysis.
Analysing text in all its dimensions implies taking into account the notion of public sphere.
Last century the scholar Jrgen Habermas has defined this concept as:

A realm of our social life in which something approaching public
opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion of
the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which
private individuals assemble to form a public body [] with the
guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to
express and publish their opinions - about matters of general interest.
(Habermas 1991: 398-404)

For Habermas political and cultural components of public sphere are the two side of a coin. He
also acknowledged in his work how journals in the past played a decisive role in boosting
political deliberation and debate as understood in contemporary terms (Jensen 2013: 16).
Fraser (1990; 2007) in analysing Habermass public sphere concept distinguished the weak
public, corresponding to the civil society whose discourse generates public opinion but has
not legislative power, from strong public, which represents sovereign parliaments and
whose discourse produces binding law.

In the realm of public sphere new media technologies have inaugurated what Allan

(2013: 121) calls a virtual civic sphere in which people have the opportunity to engage in
the world in a broad sense and they can also learn how to engage in the world around them.
The very nature of the Web 2.0 is to enable participatory culture of interactivity, sharing and
collaboration in accordance to the goals and activity of different virtual community (Ibid.).

The notion of community has been theorised by contemporary sociological theories

and can be understood from four main standpoints (Annette 2009). The first type of
understanding community is descriptive and it relates to concepts such as place and
neighbourhood. The second type is a normative ideal and considers concepts such as
solidarity and inclusion. Third way to conceptualise community is from the cultural
perspective of building identities and includes what is known as community of interest. The
last type is based on a political ideal and presumes participation and citizens involvement at

15

local level (Annette 2009: 153). Those are just general categorisations and hybrid typologies
can be generated by the combination of those (Ibid.).

In the realm of new media environment Robinson & DeShano (2011) argue that

bloggers would build interpretative community by framing and recognising themselves in

certain values, norms and views. According to the authors people involved in the news
making process would be more inclined in participate in the democracy and civil society.

According to Castells (2001) we are now living in an information society in which the

informative flux and news production processes have never been so intense. In order to
experience the new media system in all its possibilities people have to develop what Kellner
(2002) defined as multiple literacy. In his work the author linked the acquisition of multiple
literacy with the opportunity to boost active citizenry in different social areas such as the
political, economic and cultural spheres (Kellner 2002).

Western democracy implied a hypothetical global access to some essential information

and culture resources in order to acquire the ability to make informed decision about
everyday social and political matters (Graham 2013: 53). Always referring to a speculative
level, people were also meant to take part at the public discourse through media, which had
the duty to represent their needs, opinions and experiences (Ibid.) and which instead
preferred to give voice mainly to institutional sources such as governmental officials and
politicians (Hermans, Schaap & Bardoel 2014: 642). According to some scholars mainstream
media have failed to fulfil their commitments toward citizens (Lippman & Merz 1920; Dewey
1926; Singer 1996; Haas 2009) and with their failure have also promoted withdrawing from
voting and a decline of civic participation regarding communitys matters (Haas 2009).

The distance between information access mediate by information communication

technologies (ICT) and people is well represented by Duffs concept of information poverty
(2015), which he considers being a significant phenomenon but underestimated. For Duff
information poverty is not just related to the absence of technological devices or more
broadly digital divide, but in an ignorance of ordinary democratic information such as legal
rights, welfare and political representation that well-heeled citizens take for granted (Duff
2015: 88). According to Moore & Tumin (1949) in situation were people are repeatedly
exposed to some kind of service or condition they can develop the ability for which they are
relying on specialist, and ultimately acquire that same capacity they are looking for, altering
the relationship between the service supplier and themselves (Ibid.). In the case of internet
users by extension we can recognise how people have subverted the relationship between

16

citizens and journalists embodying the role of what Campbell (2015) called the active
audience or in term of Rosen (2008) the people formerly known as audience.

The people formerly known as the audience are those who were on the
receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting
pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very
loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one
another and who today are not in a situation like that at all (Rosen
2008).

Internet can be considered as an answer to solve the problem in which political knowledge
and distribution of information have been monopolised by mainstream media (Singer 1996).
In the words of Bruns (2005) people are not anymore simple users, but they are produsers
and they actively participate with full rights to the news production process taking part in
what Jenkins et al. (2006) have defined as participatory culture.

Arnstein (1969) identifies eight degrees of participation in which informing is

considered the first step towards the legitimisation of citizen participation. Campbell (2015)
goes further asserting that doing information is essentially an act of journalism, which
involves activity and not passivity. He recalls the two notions of actualising citizens, who are
those engaged in communities and in the news production process, and dutiful citizens
(Bennet et al. 2009: 107) who just limit their involvement in voting without participate in
other forms of citizenry.

A form of civic engagement, which involves the produsage (Bruns 2015) of news, is

the recent appearance of citizen journalism practice exercised within blogs, websites and
social media. Citizen journalism (CJ) is a phenomenon born in the 1990s that can be
understood as an umbrella concept (Barnes 2012:12) and which has been variously defined
as grassroot journalism, networked, open source, participatory, distributed or bottom-up
journalism (Glaser 2010: 581). In a more circumscribed meaning CJ can be referred to the
contribution to discussion in the public sphere, whether in the form of simple information,
synthesis, reporting or opinion about topics which encompass from very local issues to
global ones (Friedland & Kim 2009).

Blogs are web pages used by people, groups or individuals to engage in discussion with

others by posting contents or hyperlinks and commenting on other blogs (Haas 2009). The
key features of blogs are that entries are displayed in a reverse chronological order and

17

usually have a section, blogroll, in which a list of significant other websites with common
interests is suggested (Ibid.) The blogosphere is characterised by a high degree of
interactivity (Barnes 2012), such as the comment function at bottom of any entries, which
traditional media did not allow, and embrace many different forms of interactions such as one
to one, one to many and also many to many (Kim et al. 2011: 809; Jensen 2013). Interactivity
is a key feature for scholars who consider journalism as conversation and who recognise the
main journalistic function of triggering public debates on civic and political matters among
people (Min 2016; Marchionni 2013; Marchionni 2007).

The four main categories in which bloggers develop their critics are accuracy, framing,

gatekeeping, and journalistic practices (Tomaszeski et al. 2009: 76). In the words of Jensen
(2013) blog has unquestionably increased the diversity of available information and opinion
(Jensen 2013: 103) on the public sphere and it is a significant competitor in the news
gathering process, intended as a crowd-sourcing process (Barnes 2012: 12), along with
traditional journalistic practices (Holcomb 2009). According to Bruns (2005) the
authoritative role of gatekeepers once retained by journalists is rapidly fading, and has being
integrated and somehow replaced by a new form of gatewatching function (Hjarvard 2013:
102) such as the practice of CJ.

CJ has also informed a new mode of public engagement (Goode 2009: 1290) and can

have potential implication for democracy which the most obvious is the fact that CJ brings
new and diversified knowledge to the public sphere (Ibid.) and in some cases can set the
agenda for other news media outlets (Ibid.).

Even if CJ is a relatively recent phenomenon in the media landscape and it is difficult to

outline specific features, we can nevertheless identify some general trends (Friedland & Kim
2009) and typologies11 (Outing 2005). One interesting feature is the almost totally shared
ability of citizen journalists to report at local and community levels. (Friedland & Kim 2009).
This hyperlocal characteristic of CJ has the strength of presenting information which
traditional media consider insignificant or too narrow, and consequently has the potential of
building local communities or communities of interest (Ibid.). Interestingly traditional media
did not report on the Occupy Wall street movement at the beginning of it s experience, which
in turn had a great impact on the general public. The movement visibility benefitted of citizen
journalists, bloggers and activists whose narrative penetrate in the awareness of mainstream
media and civil society (Min 2015: 577).

11 Outing, S. (2005). The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism At http://www.poynter.org/2005/the-11-layers-ofcitizen-journalism/69328/, accessed July 17, 2016.

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A specific form of CJ conceptualised by Wall is the resistance model (Wall 2015: 803)

which acts in opposition to the prevailing political and social power of the system in which is
operating. This model is essentially a collective phenomenon and it gathers activists and
social movement that share same oppositional attitudes (Ibid.). The public media
environment generated by the CJ practice may give rise to an alternative public sphere (Guo
in Wall 2015: 804) and has the potential to establish a complete oppositional news system
(Wall & El Zahed in Wall 2015: 804). Since its very beginning CJ has displayed those
characteristics such as the IndyMedia network which was born as form of protest in response
to the World Trade Organization meeting organised in Seattle in 1999 (Friedland & Kim
2009).

Regarding the degree of credibility attributed to blogs, Tomaszeski et al. (2009)

referring to an empirical study carried out by Johnson and Kaye (2004) observed that the
majority of blog readers believe blogs provide in-depth information and are considered
reliable (Tomaszeski et al. 2009: 76). It is important looking at this situation on the light of a
declining trust in governments and less trustworthy politicians discussed by Misztal (2001:
371) and the aforementioned failure of mainstream media outlets (Haas 2009). The authors
proposed a new model to understand blogs, drawn upon the media and accountability system
(Bertrand 2000) and the models of agenda setting and two-step flow (Brosius & Weimann
1996), in which political bloggers can play the role of an additional and independent media
accountability system and agenda setters in the new media landscape (Tomaszeski et al.
2009: 76).

To solve contemporary trust gap Misztal suggest the civic communitarian strategy

(2001: 379) which assumes that trust can be fostered within civil society on the bases of
personal knowledge and mutual obligation among communities and associations in a bottomup perspective (Ibid.). Kim, Kavanaugh & Hult (2011) suggest that civic engagement is a
fundamental prerequisite for good governance, especially at local level, and internet has the
capability to built social capital which is involved in social issues and democratic decisionmaking processes (Kim, Kavanaugh & Hult 2011: 808). Writing a blog entry or an opinion in
an online forum may be considered an act of journalism (Glaser 2010: 578) in a broad sense
and subsume the concept of participation and democracy.

Interestingly McLuhan (1964), affirming that the medium is the message, envisioned

how new media technologies created new possibilities of communication and new form of
discourses in which new identities and roles have been shaped. Ordinary citizens are the new
actors in the arena of production and distribution of information content while traditional

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media systems are not anymore the centre of dissemination of news and knowledge (Glaser
2010).

Obviously communicative practices such as blog and CJ have limits and have drawn

criticisms among journalist and scholars. One essential point is that users generated content
(UGC) (Barnes 2012: 20) is inherently biased (Ibid.) and heavily opinionated (Min 2015: 570).
In addition citizens journalists often do not posses the means to produce in-depth reporting
(Ibid.) and lack of a formal training such as professional journalists (Barnes 2012: 21).

Linguistic analysis perspectives

Media are the arena where texts are produced and consumed. Through media language plays
the role of being carrier of meaning and is used by people to make sense of the world
(Fairclough 2003). Language can be expressed as a manifold set of discursive practices, which
are inseparable from their cultural context and social system (Richardson 2007). For
Wittgenstein (1953) meaning and sensemaking process are strictly connected to the use of
the language and they cannot be separated from it.

In media and communication studies the tradition of hermeneutics sat the basis of the

concept of intertextuality. This notion specifies that any text in order to exist has to be
influenced by countless previous sources and texts, and it will probably influence future texts
(Schrder 2013: 115) in what has been called genre chains (Fairclough 2003: 30).

These notions were further developed by the semiotic approach particularly in the

contribution of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce. Focusing their attention
on the formal and linguistic aspects of language they distinguished between the abstract
concept of it, langue, and its actual use, parole. They both conceived a system to analyse texts
based on the investigation of a unit called sign.

According to Saussure (1959) the sign is composed by two mutual and inseparable

aspects, which he defined as the signified and the signifier. While the former consist of the
conceptual image in peoples mind of a real object or referent, the latter is composed by the
sound and image associated with it. This dichotomy is present also in Barthess model, and in
part corresponds to what he called connotation and denotation (Barthes 1967).

According to semiotic everything can be considered a sign (Saussure 1959; Peirce

1985; Berger 2016; Eco 1976) and it can be used to deceive people or to tell them the truth
(Eco 2016: 7).

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The two basic axes suggested by Saussure (1959) from which researchers can analyse

texts are the syntagmatic axis and the paradigmatic axis. The first concerns the sequential
disposition of textual units in the text in a horizontal perspective. The second relates to the
vertical axis in which the process of selection of a specific sign, in the case of a written text a
word, takes place. Those two axes can be applied to the analysis of a single unit/sign, and also
to the analysis of longer sequences such as sentences or portions of a text.

Propp (1968) applied those axes to the narratives analysis of texts in his work about

the structure of folktales. On the one hand, syntagmatic analysis means to look at how the
words and components of a text are sequentially related; on the other hand, the paradigmatic
analysis looks at its oppositions and how hidden meaning are nested in the text

The basic unit of narrative analysis is called function, and it has to be understood as

specific act performed by a character in a text, which implies a distinctive point of view in the
context of a story (Propp 1968). In order to have a thorough tool to analyse the narrative
structure of a story it is effective to combine this last method with the actant model conceived
by Greimas (1983).

For Greimas (1983) there are six primary positions in which characters can be placed

and from which they perform certain functions in relation to the other parts of a text. Those
positions are respectively sender, receiver, helper, opponent, subject and object. In the words
of Larsen (2013):

The moment a narrative project is stated, two actants are established: a
Subject who desires an Object. In addition, all narrative projects have to
do with communication in the sense of transport: the Object has to be
moved between two positions. Therefore, the statement of a project
also establishes two further actants, the potential Sender who has the
Object, and the potential Receiver who lacks it. The transport of the
object is usually complicated by a conflict between competing projects
within the narrative universe. In such cases, the Subject is faced with an
Opponent who will try to prevent the transport. Furthermore, there will
often be a Helper, i.e., an actant who supports the project and works to
facilitate the transport of the Object (Larsen 2013: 140).

These approaches develop a comprehensive understanding of text and allow to highlight
narrative patterns and to identify the purpose of a text.

21

In order to go deeper in the analysis of texts a CDA approach should be apply. CDAs

contribution to the study of media discourse can be summarised in few main points.

For Richardson (2007: 10-14) CDA understands language as being characterised by

five crucial premises:

Language is social and it is central to human interaction

Language enacts and represent identities

Language is active and oriented at carrying out some specific functions

Language has power and substantially is defined by the social influence of the speaker
in shaping peoples views of social reality

Language is political

Discourse is at the core of CDA and its aim is to pinpoint the ideological aspect of discursive
practices, which are ascribed to produce and reproduced social inequalities and the society at
large. (Richardson 2007)

CDA sees texts as forged on the one hand by social structures and social practices, on

the other hand by social agents who take part in social events (Fairclough 2003: 22). To better
understand what Fairclough means with those categories we should interpret it as macro
levels of analysis.

With social structures the author intends abstract entities including economic

structures, social classes and also language, which are ultimately considered a set of
possibilities constituting semiosis. Social structures are in a dialectical relationship with
social agents, people who use language, and social practices. These last one are the selected
structured possibilities recognised and adopted by certain groups of people and are
expression of a particular order of discourse, genre or style. The dynamic interaction of these
elements shape specific social events in which text has to be considered as one of their
possible effects (Fairclough 2003). In this language game (Wittgenstein 1953) social uses of
discursive practices are continuously produced, maintained and represented in a boundless
interactive process.

Pivotal for CDA is the already cited notion of intertextuality. In relation to digital

technologies the concept of intertextuality has to be understood as an operational set of

structures, such as hyperlinks, oriented to the connection of texts or hypertexts with other
texts or web content (Jensen 2013: 193). Intertextualitys connections can be distinct in
internal, when a text refers to other units within the text itself, or external, when a text refers
to other texts (Richardson 2007: 101).

22
In the possible different scenarios in which a text can exist, we can classify texts that

accept differences in a sort of dialogue, or texts that accentuate differences triggering conflict
and polemic in a fight to gain social power and legitimacy. Social power and legitimacy are
strictly associated with the notion of hegemony12 and leadership (Gramsci 1971; Cox, 2004:
311) and the subsequent ability of a text to shape ideology based on the aforementioned
common ground (Fairclough 2003: 55).

The discursive strategies to enact hegemony are easily detectable applying a rhetorical

framing analysis (Dangelo & Kupyers 2010), which through texts narrative can highlight
main themes that are framed within a text and the way in which those themes are represented (Dangelo & Kupyers 2010: 298). Framing is the process through which the salience
of the key concepts and ideas in a discourse are established and it can define issues, diagnose
causes, give moral judgments and suggest solutions (Dangelo & Kupyers 2010: 301). Frames
are peculiar interpretations of events and situations propose by particular groups and
individuals and can be revealed by linguistic properties such as key words, metaphors,
concepts, symbols, visual images, and names given to persons, ideas, and actions (Dangelo &
Kupyers 2010: 301).

The approaches of CDA, framing analysis, semiotic and linguistic in analysing texts

produced in the context of blog and CJ have some limitations. As well explained by Richardson
(2007: 20) content analysis includes an interpretative task, which involves deciding what is
worth saving or not in the course of the coding stage. Asking the wrong question may lead to
put attention on erroneous aspects of a text reducing the strength and the validity of the
research process (Ibid.). It also lacks of what Jensen (2012: 117) defines an empirical
attention towards middle range discursive practices such as the analysis of the production or
consumption of texts. Neglecting to investigate audience and other social agents would limit
the application and the explicative value claimed to be at the core of such approach (Philo in
Jensen 2012: 117).

12 Hegemony, according to Cox, is the process by which a ruling class induces all other classes to accept its
authority without the need of force. Despite the fact that coercion is always inherent in the background,
hegemony means more leadership rather than domination' (Cox, 2004: 311).

23

Case study background

Socio political context of Italy
In this section I shall illustrate the main aspects of the Italian system in order to clarify the
social, political and cultural context in which Grillos blog developed. This section aims to
inform of all that aspects that CDA considers pivotal in understanding the phenomenon and
subsequently its communication strategies, from the informative discourse to the political
one.

According to Hallin and Mancini (2004) Italy is part of what they call the Polarized

Pluralist Model, which is characterised by a strong integration between mainstream media

and political parties, with a heavy role of the state. This model also presents a weaker
historical development of commercial media than other European countries (Hallin & Mancini
2004: 11). In fact the public broadcasting company RAI (Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A.) is
owned by the ministry of Economy and Finance and its directive board is nominated directly
by political parties. (Roman 2013). A strong competitor of RAI is Mediaset, the largest Italian
commercial broadcaster owned by the former Prime Minister Berlusconi who founded this
company in 1970s. Mosca (2011) considers the Italian broadcasting situation as an
oligopolistic market in which two major companies share the majority of the audience and of
the advertising market. The predominant political presence in the Italian broadcast system
allowed parties to retain high level of consent in the public arena and it resulted in little or not
space at all for new political actors (Mosca 2011: 94). The television is the main channel
through which Italian people get information (Hallin & Mancini 2004: 25) and also, as Mosca
(2011: 94) pointed out in his study, Italy has one of the lowest per capita rate of circulation of
newspapers. Since the rigidness of this media system the new political forces encountered an
extremely adverse environment, which undermined their visibility, and even in the case they
had the chance of being represented in mainstream media they usually were stigmatised and
ridiculed (Mosca 2011: 94).

Italy was also signed by a significant delay in implementing EU directives on

liberalisation of the telecommunication market (Mosca 2002) and subsequently the country
saw the increase of residential use of internet just at the beginning of 2000 with just a small
amount of the population having an internet access13. Nowadays Italy still displays the lowest
rate of internet access compared to other European countries14. The web environment in

13 Source The National Institute for Statistics at http://www.istat.it/it/files/2011/03/Italia-in-cifre.pdf

14 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe

24

2000 was characterised by less then 80 Italian newspaper websites, which were presented
merely as the web transposition of the paper versions with an almost complete absence of
interactivity features (Mosca 2002: 5). Concerning the political parties presence on the web
in the same period almost every party had its own webpage, which was mainly built as
showcase offering some general information but without exploiting the interactivity
possibilities offered by the web (Bentivegna in Mosca 2002: 8). This approach to the web did
not produce any growth in the number of people interested on the political subject, but it
helped in strengthening the already existing supporters base (Ibid.).

It is not an exaggeration thus affirming that in Italy the cyber culture was less rooted

than other countries and it is comprehensible that a phenomenon such as the M5S appealed
many people for its novelty effect (Mosca 2015: 44).

Moving away from technical aspects of the communication environment in Italy, it is

important to understand the mood that was running among people concerning the political
situation when Grillos blog first appeared. The traditional political situation, which has been
called the First Republic (Borcio 2013: 50), was shaken in the 1990s by cases of bribery and
corruption such as the Tangentopoli15 scandal (Borcio 2013: 50), which ultimately led to the
entire parties systems collapse (Roman 2013: 10). In the scandal were involved the most
influent politicians across all political parties. Bettino Craxi, former Prime Minister, had to flee
to Hammamet in 1994 to escape the judicial system, where it remained fugitive until he died
in 2000 (Acquaviva & Covatta 2012).

After the scandals in the 1990s a new wave of trials hit Italian politicians in the first

decade of 2000s, such as the former Prime Minister Berlusconi for bribery, corruption and
criminal association (Roman 2012: 11). This was happening along with an intense period of
national financial crisis (Putini 2016; Roman 2012) and political instability, which ultimately
led to the installation in 2011 of a technical government made by professionals who were not
coming from political parties and which ruled for more than a year (Roman 2012: 11).

All these aspects generated discontent among Italians who felt less interest in politic

affaires (Roman 2012: 11) and experienced what Misztal calls a declining trust in
government and in the working of democracy (Misztal 2001: 371). Another source of
distrust, which influenced many young people in turning their attention to Grillos blog and
the M5S, was the lack of jobs opportunity. A report on political and social exclusion in

15 For an overview see Curini, L. & Martelli, P. (2012). I partiti politici nella prima repubblica. Maggioranze e
governi della Costituente a tangentopoli. Modern Italy. Vol.17/1. pp. 144-146.

25

Europe16 shows how in Italy did no exist any particular policy which supported youths
employment and also how the new generations were entering the labor field as flexible or
atypical17 workers (Baglioni et al. 2009). The report also shows how the Italian welfare
model was heavily relying on the role of family to support economically young people as form
of agent of social protection (Ibid.).

This was the milieu in which Beppe Grillo and the M5S developed and on which they

built their political and information strategies effectively exploiting the possibility of their
blog. In the next section I shall introduced the main actors involved in the case study.

Beppe Grillo
Beppe Grillo is an Italian comedian who starts his career in the late 1970s with some satirical
shows about Italian customs and traditions broadcasted by RAI television. He rapidly became
one of the most popular comedians in the country and he participated in some important TV
programs as guest, such as the national music contest Sanremo and Domenica In, between the
1980s and the 1990s obtaining high rate of audience. When his satirical style shifted to a
more environmental and political matters he found some ostracism by RAI from which he was
thrown out after having prophetically asserted during one of his sketches that the Prime
Minister in charge, Bettino Craxi18, was a thief before the eruption of the Tangetopoli scandal
in which Craxi was involved.

Along with his comedians career Grillo started to get involved in some forms of protest

and civic engagement such as the campaign to eliminate toll number services from the SIP
(Societ Italiana Per l'Esercizio delle Telecomunicazioni), now know as Telecom Italia spa, in
1993. Grillo invited his fans to send a postcard to Biagio Agnes, the then director of the Italian
telephone company, asking to eliminate those toll numbers, the initiative had success and few
days later the director allowed the deactivation of them (Corbetta & Gualmini, 2013). Grillos
subsequent campaigns were concerning topics such as the withdrawal of Italian troops from
Iraq or environmental issues such as the construction of the TAV railway line (Treno ad Alta
Velocit - High Speed Train) in Susa Valley, using tools such as mail bombing strategies,
marches and petitions (Biorcio 2013 :47). The organisational process of his campaigns and

16 https://www.unige.ch/sciences-societe/incite/welcome-to-the-incite-website/research-projects/past-

projects/
17 http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/comparative-information/nationalcontributions/italy/italy-flexible-forms-of-work-very-atypical-contractual-arrangements
18 http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2013/02/26/la-lunga-metamorfosi-di-grillodalle-battute.html

26

protests was running on his blog from which people could get information and logistical
instructions about the protests.

Among the most important campaigns that Grillo led there are the two V-days, where

V stood for victory recalling the famous graphic novel V for Vendetta but also for the Italian
insult vaffanculo19 (Ibid.). The first V-day was held on the 8 September 2007 in 179 cities with
the aim to collect signatures to propose a bill for the expulsion of members of the Italian
Parliament convicted for various crimes. He was able to collect more that 350,000 signatures
and that event was one of the first civic protest principally organised through the web in Italy
(Biorcio 2013: 49). On January that same year Grillo announced he would have supported the
formation of civic lists in local elections, though he cleared that he did not want to run for
elections himself (Natale & Ballatore 2014: 108).

The second V-day was organised in more than 400 Italian squares on the 25 April

2008, which is a national festivity that celebrates the liberation of Italy from the Nazi
occupation and the end of the World War II (Ibid.). This date was chosen for its symbolic
meaning inasmuch he wanted free the country from the bad information service given by
national newspapers accused of being the watchdog of the political power (Salmena 2014:
10). In that occasion he proposed to abolish the national professional body of journalists,
which was established during Mussolinis dictatorship and which he considered as a fascist
institution, and he also proposed to abolish the public financing of publishing and the
Gasparri Law on communication (Ibid.).

These two initiatives gave for the first time consistent visibility to Grillo and his

supporters on the mainstream media and on the public opinion, showing the real power of the
online and offline strategies put in place by this new political subject (Roberto Biorcio 2013:
49).

After having gained political influence Grillo eventually founded the Movimento Cinque

Stelle (M5S Five Stars Movement) in 2009, where the five stars stand for the five main areas
in which the movement aims to promote its values, water, environment, transport,
connectivity, and development20. The condition to join the M5S was not to be already a
member of other political parties and to follow the set of rules listed on what has been called
the non-statute21 (Natale & Ballatore 2014: 108).

19 The literal English translation of the word vaffanculo is fuck off.
http://www.wordreference.com/iten/vaffanculo
20 http://www.movimento5stellevittorioveneto.it/features/le-5-stelle-cosa-rappresentano/
21 http://www.beppegrillo.it/iniziative/movimentocinquestelle/Regolamento-Movimento-5-Stelle.pdf

27
Grillos relationship with mainstream media was very difficult and he always refused

to give any interview to journalists or to participate in TV programs and debates after the
establishment of the movement (Borcio 2013: 51). Nevertheless media started giving him
more and more attention and he became a recurrent topic in the news especially after the
striking success at the national election in 2013 in which the M5S became the second political
force in Italy (Natale & Ballatore 2014: 106). The main channel through which Grillo and his
supporters spread their communications is the blog, which plays a pivotal role since its
establishment and still represents the main tool to share and collect information (Ibid.).

www.beppegrillo.it
Beppe Grillos blog was first online on January 2005, mainly to promote his shows and sell his
shows DVDs, but also to collect local information from the public about the cities in which he
was due to perform. Since the beginning of the blog a special section was sat up to allow
people to write their entries about local or general issues called Il Muro del Pianto (The
Wailing Wall). In the section How to use the blog it was stated

Beppe Grillos Blog is an open space for you to use so that we can come
face to face directly. As your comment is published immediately, theres
no time for filters to check it out. Thus the Blogs usefulness depends on
your cooperation and it makes you the only ones responsible for the
content and the resulting outcomes.22

After few months from its birth a news section, GrilloNews, was created where were already
present the main topics that later became the fuel for his protests such as environment,
Telecom Italia and Italian political corruption. An English section also was added in which
were translated the main posts present in the Italian version. From 2006 a new section called
La Settimana (The week) was added, which was a pdf version of the main posts available to
download and it was intended as informative material that people could have spread via email
or printed version. In the meantime media content such as video interviews with journalists,
scientists and other people started filling the blog entries and the amount of collaborators
grew. An important contribution was the Passaparola (Word of mouth) section, a weekly
broadcast program, which was edited by the journalist Marco Travaglio for three years and

22 https://web.archive.org/web/20090122175250/http://beppegrillo.it/eng/aiuto.php

28

four months and is now hosting speeches from different people, from local activists to
member of national organisations. Always relating to the information area it is interesting
how the blog sat a section calle Lo Scudo Della Rete (The Shield of the Network) which aims to
legally and economically support those bloggers who were sued for defamation in order to
protect their freedom of expression and their civic engagement in spreading what the
movement defines as counterinformation (Mosca 2011: 87).

Among the many critics the blog attracted there is some sort of concern about the

M5Ss co-founder, Gianroberto Casaleggio, who through his internet and publishing company,
Casaleggio Associati srl, has advised Grillo on network strategies and has produced all his
shows and publications since 2004. After the death of Gianroberto Casaleggio in April 2016
his son Davide Casaleggio took his role in the company.

Casaleggio started his career in Olivetti in the 1990s and wrote several books and

newspaper articles about the innovative and liberating role of internet in contemporary
society (Natale & Ballatore 2014: 107). His philosophy was labelled as cyber-utopianism
(Ibid.) because he saw the web as a supermedium (Casaleggio and Grillo, 2011: 7) able to
completely transform all political, social, informational, and organisational processes (Natale
& Ballatore 2014: 112). His role in the M5S was not always clear but nevertheless was
considered the guru of the movement23 by his followers and peers.

He sat the ideological bases for the development of Grillos blog, putting the web at the

centre of all organisational and deliberation processes of the movement. They offered a place
where collecting people experiences and where organise civil protests coming from the
bottom of Italian society (Putini 2016). They also published a free e-book, Schiavi Moderni24
(Modern slaves), in which the stories of young people posted on the blog related to their work
conditions and whose hopes for the future were betrayed by the Italian politics system are
collected (Salmena 2014: 8).

The increasing visibility of the blog creates what Allan describes as a virtual civic

sphere (Allan 2013: 121) for political deliberation and debate (Jensen 2013: 16) and boosted
participatory culture (Jenkins et al. 2006). The interactivity feature (Barnes 2012) of the blog
allowed many forms of interaction25 between people encouraging conversation (Min 2016;
Marchionni 2013; Marchionni 2007) and an active role of the audience (Rosen: 2008)
transforming web users in produsers (Bruns 2005).

23 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/03/italy-five-star-movement-internet
24 http://grillorama.beppegrillo.it/schiavimoderni/
25 See pag.XXX of this writing

29
Mosca (2011) identifies several functions that a webpage can carry out which are

strictly related to the way in which Grillo and the M5S make use of their blog. First of all, the
logistical and administrative function for the organisation of protests and events. Secondly,
the informative-cognitive function, which helps the sensitisation of public opinion and it
offers alternative values and interpretive patterns about social and political matters. Then
there is the advocacy function, which aims to represent and protect the interests of the
bottom part of society along with environmental and human rights issues. The last two are the
function of support forms of protest such as mail bombing and cyber-protest, and the
symbolic and expressive function to reinforce and build the collective identity of the
movement (Mosca 2011: 102).

Along with these functions are also recognisable in Grillos blog the four practices

identified by Tomaszeski of accuracy, framing, gatekeeping and journalistic practice

(Tomaszeski et al. 2009: 76) with a crowd-sourcing approach (Barnes 2012).

The subsequent develop of public engagement of Grillos followers had what Goode

(2009: 1290) depicts as implication for democracy influencing also the agenda setting of
mainstream media (Ibid.). According to Natale and Ballatore Grillos blog has functioned as
the movements main political platform and discussion forum boosting discussion (Natale &
Ballatore 2014: 106) and civic engagement. Before presenting the content analysis of the
blogs entries I shall first introduce the activists characteristics and forms of organisations of
the M5S.

Five Stars Movement

According to Mosca (2015) the M5S has been marked by four main phases in which it gained
particular characteristics. The first stage was the latency from 2005 to 2007 in which the blog
was established and Grillos fans were transformed into activists. The second was the
visibility stage from 2007 to 2008 in which were organised the main protests and campaigns
such as the V-Days. The third stage was the entrance in the political arena and establishment
of the non-statute at the end of 2009. The last stage was the electoral boom at the local and
national elections and the subsequent institutionalisation of the movement (Corbetta &
Gualmni 2013; Mosca 2015).

The M5S has been inspired by the new forms of pressure groups based on the web

with little physical management dimension and supported by a system of fundraising based
on micro-donations made by activists (Mosca 2015). The movement model can be classified

30

as cybercratic (De Rosa 2014) with a strong centralised system where the political
communicative resources are managed by the centre, Grillos blog, and the operational,
organisational resources and control function are entrusted to the local network of activists
(De Rosa 2014: 91). The democratic ideology is based on the direct use of the web to
deliberate and vote where the people allowed to vote are just the members of the movement
(Mosca 2015: 42) in fact the digital culture play a paramount role in the political message of
the 5-Star Movement (Natale & Ballatore 2014: 106).

The legal framework in which the M5S operates is a private association of which Grillo

is the legal owner of the movements logo and of the web platform (Putini 2016: 2). The
interaction between Grillo and the local movements flowed into the M5S is based on four
points (Mosca 2013: 288).

The closeness of programmatic strategies

The representation of the local movements issues in institutions

The grassroots mobilisation

The opening of the places such as electoral and institutional arena to activists and
leaders of movements

The content nature is based on a populist matrix (Putini 2016) which scholars identify as
emerging attitude during political, economical and social periods of instability (Taggart in
Putini 2016). Populism are characterised by a strong and charismatic leadership, which
proclaims to be the keeper of the true meaning of the democratic ideal and have a weak form
of organisational system (Ibid.). The M5Ss motto is Uno Vale Uno (One count as One) as
proclamation of a direct democracy ideal and underlines that there are no formal differences
among participants. Some important values shared by the activists come directly from other
political parties such as green parties, radical left, liberal parties, cybernetic parties, and in
general to what Putini defines a post-materialistic dimension. In that sense is not completely
correct classify the M5S under the populisms umbrella (Putini 2016). From the populism
attitude it is certainly clear a marked inclination to values such as honesty and transparency,
which trigger more emotional responses than rational (Viviani in Putini 2016).

The movement present a high degree of heterogeneousness among its participants

since its collective identity is the result of pre-existing elements, which at certain point
became integrated in one single movement (Salmena 2014). Despite the fact the nature of the
movement is web based, the majority of people activities actually develop offline, at local and
community levels (Putini 2016).

31
The majority of the groups were already established entities in their local area (Borcio

2013: 49) such as the Movimento No TAV (No TAV movement) whose protest has already
over 20 years of history and whose activists were elected in some districts in 2012 with civic
lists supported by Grillo (Mosca 2013: 286). The No TAV Movement and Grillo synergy began
in 2005 when the comedian posted in his blog in the sections Informati (Get informed) and
Battaglie (Fights) the No TAV reasons. He personally engaged with the local outcry up to the
point he was brought to court for having trespassed in 2010 the construction sites seals as
act of protest to stop the railway line works and to take back what was considered the
symbolic site where the No TAV Movement was founded26.

It is true that at the beginning Grillos role gave to the movement a sort of personal

movement configuration with a strong attention to the leader figure (Borcio 2013: 47). This is
in line with the mediatisation, spectacularisation and personification process of the Italian
politics (Mazzoleni e Schulz in Mosca 2013: 277), which started with the entrance in the
political arena of Berlusconi that ultimately produced a presidentialisation of the political
system (Mosca 2013: 277). The already mentioned report27 on political and social exclusion
in Europe underlines the fact that in Italy is no longer possible to speak about a pure
parliamentary regime, but instead they suggest adopting the notion of semi-parliamentary
regime, or even the informal way such as presidential regime, to depict how in the course of
the time the government gained more power (Baglioni et al. 2009). This aspect is also
mirrored by the Italian referendum scheduled at the end of 2016 in which, if the yes position
wins, the government will gain as result even more political power than in the past28.

As general statement the M5S can be considered a community in the four ways Annette

(2009) describes with a strong virtual component (Allan 2013: 121). It can also be
understood not only as local or interest community, but also as interpretative community
because movements members frame and recognise themselves in particular values, norms
and views (Robinson & DeShano 2011). In the next section I shall introduce specific
characteristics of the M5Ss members and activists in more details to expand the M5S picture
and composition.

26http://torino.repubblica.it/cronaca/2014/03/03/news/torino_grillo_condannato_a_4_mesi_viol_la_baita_no_ta
v_sotto_sequestro-80090482/
27 See pag.25
28 https://constitution-unit.com/2016/10/13/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-italian-constitutionalreferendum/

32

Methodology
Starting from the findings of Roman (2012) about Grillos blog I first reviewed the 382 entries
she analysed in her study to create a picture of the nature of those posts. Considering the data
exclusively related to the UGC content, which showed to have the highest number compared
to other authors, I then realised they had similar structures of the content that are found on
the commentary section of the blog. It seems that the blog managers selected the most salient
contents to publish on the base of votes given by users to those comments in the discussion
area at the bottom of any entry. I then started looking at the NO TAV section in order to detect
the number of entries related to the topic, the authors of those entries and main themes of the
contents. After this first level of analysis I then focused my attention on the comment section
selecting the first 100 comments of seven entries in the time lapse 2005-2014, year in which
the blog stopped to address the issue. The entries analysed have been selected respectively
for the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012 and 201429 in order to acquire an historical
perspective of the topic and to understand to what extent the possibilities of the comment
section have been exploited by users.

Every text has been examined on the following bases: the terminologies adopted and

specific vocabulary; the political power representation and the use of discursive power
strategies; the mainstream power representation and the alternative system proposed; the
peculiar constructed preferred meaning for certain ideas based on linguistic features such as
dichotomies, inclusion/exclusion, metaphors and tone; the level of intertextuality and the
level of dialog among participants. It also considers the quantity of the information
contribution given by users on the topic such as technical, economical, social and
environmental information, which aimed to add knowledge on the given issue.

In detecting themes a heuristic code has been applied (Jensen 2013: 278) which has

been renegotiated and widened any time a new topic or subject was brought into the
discussion during the analysis process. A combination of quantitative and qualitative
approaches sat the basis to understand the experiential types and social uses of the blog by
users and allowed to identify any CJ features present on the NO TAV topic.

29 The nomenclature and date of the posts are: Tab.1 (30 November 2005); Tab.2 (27 June 2006); Tab.3 (31 July
2007); Tab.4 (6 November 2008); Tab. 5 (7 December 2010); Tab.6 (29 February 2012); Tab.7 (18 January
2014)

33

Analysis
The total amount of entries related to the NO TAV topic from 2005 to 2014 is 104 posts. The
distribution of the posts in the time frame considered is not homogeneous and it has a pick
during the years 2011-2012, period in which the M5S gained political momentum but also
period in which it was intensified by the Italian state the militarization of the area after
several civic protest actions by local citizens and environmental movements.

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
year year year year year year year year year year
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Table 1 - Number of posts per year

The authors of the entries have been not always easy to define, in some cases the name of
Grillo appeared as author of the introduction, manly made by few words to introduce the
topic but the content itself is declared to be written by others. In those cases, which are very
small in number, the contents were treated as produced by users. In other cases the name of
the author is not stated, but because of the reiterate use of the first singular pronoun I in the
text and the references to his personal issues related to the topic it is reasonable to attribute
those contents to Grillo, for this situation a specific category (Unknown but Grillo) has been
set. In few cases the author is not stated at all and there are not linguistic features that let
attribute the text to Grillo, for those cases a specific category has also been set (Unknown). In
order to not overlap contents created by activists and those written by regular citizens two
different categories have been set (Activist; Citizen). Specific categories have been also set for
contents attributed to some sort of public figure, such as mayor or city councilman (Public
Figure), and for specialists, such as engineers or professors (Specialist). A separate category
has been assigned to other bloggers who have written about the topic on Grillos blog

34

(Blogger). These findings aim to respond to the first part of the RQ (1): Who are the authors
and what are the main themes of the blog entries about the NO TAV topic?
The following table summarises the findings.

UNKNOWN but GRILLO
CITIZENS
ACTIVISTS
GRILLO
PUBLIC PERSONS
UNKNOWN
BLOGGERS
SPECIALIST
0

10

15

20

25

30

35

Table 2 Authors of the blog entries

Every entry has been defined by one main theme, where a post shows equally interest in two
different themes two categories have been assigned for it. Every time an entry introduced a
new topic that was not mentioned in previous categories a new category has been set. The CJ
component of these findings relates to all the topics that aim to increase the knowledge about
the NO TAV issue. The CJ practice can be identifies in the presentation of technical data,
reporting the violence on the battle field during protests, the legal repercussion paid by NO
TAV activists, the process of reframing mainstream media information and whenever facts
related to Italian politicians have been reported. The CJ component has not been included at
this stage but will be addressed further on in the discussion of the data section of the case
study. The following table shows the findings related to the main themes of the entries of the
blog. These findings aim to respond to the second part of the RQ (1): Who are the authors
and what are the main themes of the blog entries about the NO TAV topic?

35

Critics of the Italian politicians

Critics of the police's violence
Technical data on TAV project
Legal repercussions of NO TAV actions
Critics of the mainstream media
Critics of the Italian democracy system
Civic actions & protests organisation
Activist's character description
Critics of other Italian insitutions
Support to the NO TAV movement
Critics of the mayia
Other countries' voice against TAV
0

10

15

20

25

Table 3 Main themes of the entries

Related to the digital intertextuality level within the body of the text of the entries there are
131 links overall. Links have been divided in two general categories internal, when they
redirect to other posts of the blog itself, and external, when they redirect to other webpages
and blogs. The external category has been further divide in subcategories according to the
source of the content. These findings aim to respond to the RQ (2): Which is the level of
intertextuality of the entries of the blog about the NO TAV topic? The following table
summarises the finding.

External link - Other civic movements/blogs
External link - Mainstream media
Internal link
Wikipedia entry
Citizens' youtube/webpage
External link - specialist's interview/webpage
External link - Italian institutions
0

10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

Table 4 Digital intertextuality level of the entries

Every entry is accompanied by an introductory media element such as videos or images on
the top part of the web page. Those media features fall also under the intertextuality level of
analysis and they can convey symbolic meanings, which can reinforce the general sense of the
entry. The video media features also link to the source of the content, becoming additional

36

elements in the digital intertextuality level. For the purpose of this work those last media
elements have not been counted in the previous set of figures since are not part of the body of
the written text, but are instead considered for their visual element component in relation to
the whole meaning of the text and also for their information content value related to the
matter NO TAV. These finding also aim to expand the understanding of the RQ (2): Which is
the level of intertextuality of the entries of the blog about the NO TAV topic? The following
table shows the findings.

Videos mainstream media & agencies
Picture NO TAV activists & other movements
Video NO TAV activists & other movements
Video Grillo/M5S
Grillo pictures/meme
Corrupted links
Video interviews
Others
Citizens you tube
Picture mainstream media & agencies
Video answer by public yigures
0

10

15

20

25

Table 5 Multimedia elements of the entries

Moving on to the comments section it is interesting how the users have experienced this
interactivity feature of the blog. The categories have been chosen according to the purpose of
the 700 comments taken into consideration. Following the procedure adopted for the analysis
of the entries, the CJ category has been this time added and filled any time the users produced
contents which aimed to add technical, economical, political and social information to the
topic supported by some sort of evidences such as data and facts. When the nature of the
comment is to propose a logic argument but without the support of any data or fact that
comment has been assimilated to other categories such as Critics. Every time a comment
introduced a new topic different from the NO TAV issue a separated category has been set,
one for those who included facts and information, another one for those who did not support
their statements with evidences their statements. A total of 23 categories have been
generated according to the nature of the content, every time a new topic was encountered
which did not fitted in previous categories a new category has been set. These findings aim to
respond to the RQ (3): In what ways and to what extent do the readers use the commentary
section on the NO TAV topic? Which are the most popular opinions and ideas of users on the

37

commentary section? They also aim to respond to the second part of the RQ (6): How much is
present the CJ component on the blog entries and within the commentary section? The
following table shows the findings.

Discussion between users
Critics of the Italian politicians
Critics of the mainstream media
Different topic with information
CJ against the TAV
Activity suggestion / organisation
Support to the No TAV movement
Critics of Italian society
Critics of the police's violence
Troll
Other media or blogs mentions on NO TAV topic
Spam
Favourable to the TAV with arguments
Against the TAV with arguments
Information request on the topic
Critics to Grillo
CJ favourable to the TAV
Different topic without information
Favourableto the TAV without arguments
Against the TAV without arguments
Critics of the mayia
Support to the police
Support to mainstraim media
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Table 6 Main themes and uses of the commentary section

In the next section the analysis of the data shall be explained in deeper details according the
CDA and framing analysis approaches.

Discussion
In this section the analysis will deal with the RQ (4), RQ (5) and the first part of the RQ (6).
Relating to how the blog entries and the comments frame the Italian political system and
mainstream media system CDA approach and framing analysis have been applied. As a
general evaluation the analysis shows that a peculiar vocabulary has been created among the
community of the blog such as referring to Berlusconi as a dwarf (Tab.4 comment M16 and
M6; Post N90) and politicians as civil servants (Post N1; Post N6; Post N10; Post N14;
Post N44; Tab.2 comment M4) with the intention to declass their political image from high
rank people to low level people. Other ways to describe politicians are manipulators (Tab.2

38

comment M14) criminals (Tab.3 comment M6) ghosts (Tab.3 comment M8) jerks (Tab.4
comment M24) and other epithets. Mainstream media are described as worse than the Pravda
(Post N82), misleading (Tab.3 comment N3), subjected to political power (Tab.4
comment N4) and biased (Tab.5 comment N2). As common trait between the entries and the
comment section the study found a quite simple and rough use of the language. Frequent are
vulgar words, which from one hand seem to be challenging the social system and from the
other hand seem to be outbursts. The politicians are depicted as people acting against
democratic values because their use of military forces in order to keep the area of the
construction site free. The violence used by the police on citizens and activists has been
described as much stronger and heavier than the violence used by activists, which are
depicted as people who were trying to protect themselves from the attacks of the police. Many
times the concept of a politics that is not willing to listen to the reasons of the citizens has
been foregrounded. Several examples on how media misrepresented facts about civic protest
actions and about the TAV project have been mentioned in the blog content (Post N30; Post
N41; Post N44; Post N46; Post N52; Post N78; Post N89). A rhetoric discourse strategy
already identified by Mosca (2013) is the distinction between us (the movement) and they
(politicians, media, police). The language use of the movement is heavily self-referential and
self-promoting and gives a low degree of relevance to different and alternative views. In
Greimas (1983) terms the NO TAV movement is the subject and sender actant, the police and
politicians are the opponents (Ibid.) and the desire of protecting the Susa valley is the object
(Ibid.). Grillos blog is the helper (Ibid.) that reaches the support of the audience which plays
the role of the receiver (Ibid.). The discourse also frames a struggle over the hegemony and
the political power of the Susa Valley area. Many existential values are promoted such as the
respect of the environment, the human right to express their own opinion and a low pace
lifestyle. These are part of the common assumptions of the people involved in the NO TAV
movement and they constitute their common ground and ideology.

A sustainable development of the environment is what we should
yearn. Let us see if it is possible to proceed at a men pace speed and not
at high speed. Everything has a price, we have to revive an ancient
word, which is forgotten: Sobriety! (Tab.2 comment E2)

Ragarding the alternative information system proposed (RQ 5) on the entries of the blog and
how is discursively constructed it is interesting the data about the technical information

39

sharing as showed by table 3. With the third highest number these data underline the
informative function executed by the blog. The second highest data relates to the critics of the
use of the violence exercised by the police. In many cases the critics come directly from the
first hand experience of the author, who reports his story contextualising facts and narrating
actions. This genre shows the purpose of the text, which can be considered as a CJ practice.
The next few examples were published on the blog few hours after having been written.

The attack was violent, with the bulldozer. They launched tear gas at head
height and attacked blindly, EVERYWHERE, EVEN INSIDE THE TENT OF THE
RED CROSS, even in the bathrooms, and now there is nobody to guard and
people who were beaten are in the process of being transported in hospitals.
(Post N39)

Susa Valley - Some members of the police are throwing stones, tear gas and
bullets on people under the highway road, risking the dead. (Post N49)

CHIOMONTE (Susa Valley) Anna Reccia, 65, died on the spot after being run
over by an armored of the Carabinieri (special police force). Almost none of
the major media reported this tragic incident happened on Wednesday, June
29 at 13 oclock, precisely in Corso Garibaldi. (Post N42)

The alternative informative system has been constructed by the direct experience and
internal focus of the authors and by reporting technical data about costs, risks and projects
information. This last function has been also carried on by interviewing specialists in the
sector coming from reliable entities such as universities and public institutions. Searching for
CJ practices within the commentary section the study identifies a high degree of sharing
technical information and personal experiences as shows by table 6. Interestingly a position
higher than the CJ contents supporting the NO TAV reasons there is the category Different
topic with information which also is built on the explanatory and information function about
particular issues involving personal experience or technical data.

Making a public work with public money it should be at least a
useful work [] if you go to see the data on the website of SITAF
(the company which manage the highroad system in Susa Valley

40
area) downhill road traffic is going down [...] Inside the tunnel the
train would be 110 km per hour while on the historic line []
which is only used for 36% (of its capacity). (Tab.1 comment G7)

The interactivity feature among the users of the commentary section is shown by the highest
number of the data related to the category Discussion between users. The nature of
comments is mostly rough and trivial and it does not related to the NO TAV topic but to
personal issues. A significant category that also concerns the interactivity dimension is the
activity suggestions and organisation of social actions categories on table 6 and table 3. In one
occasion the activists were able to collect the amount of 247.746,53 in order to pay a court
fine and legal costs based on a public request of support (Post N103; Post N104).
The intertextuality level (Table 4) seems to have a balance between internal and external
links, and between alternative information system and mainstream media. Though those data
can be interpreted as a positive sign of a good level of dialog between internal and external
dimension of the matter, they are not. Looking at their contexts and at their rhetoric strategies
they have the function to reinforce the authors arguments and positions expressed within the
body of the text. The same dynamic of meaning construction happens in the relationship
between the multimedia features (Table 5) and the body of the text. Their anchorage function
(Barthes 1967) serves to support with visual evidences the discursive practices of the texts.

Previous studies show that a common practice of social movements is to use the web to

spread information and construct their identities. Internet empowered social movements and
became an influential means of mobilising public support (Nah 2009: 1295) and share their
goals and reports. In this sense the web changed the relationship between mainstream media
outlet and social movements.

Movement activists and ordinary citizens who have become citizen
journalists [] may influence how the general public perceives social
movements in a more supportive and positive way, in contrast to
traditional journalism, which tends to marginalize and decentralize
social movements by showing radical and violent images rather than
core messages of movements. This is especially true for those groups
who oppose the government. (Nah 2009: 1296)

41

The synergy established by CJ, social movements and other form of civic engagements in the
present case study fits with Nah analysis above mentioned and it expands the current
theoretical framework in the studys field. In the next and last section the main conclusions
will be presented and summarised.

Conclusion
The present study has aimed to measure the CJ component within the blog of Beppe Grillo
focusing especially on the NO TAV section. The multilevel approach on which the study is
based involves the consideration of linguistic features as well as the socio cultural context.
The study brackets a portion of the totality of the blog of Beppe Grillo and it does not aim to
give general consideration about the state of CJ practices on its entirety. Starting from the
theoretical framework the study summarises the historical and political context in which the
case study developed, it also considers the structure of the movement and the relationship
with its centre. The linguistic and framing features on the commentary section mirror some
aspects of the entries of the blog. The closeness of those discursive practices represents the
common ground for the sensemaking process put in place by both, Beppe Grillo and the
produsers (Bruns 2005). The high level of criticism of politics and media reflects the political
crisis and lack of trust in mainstream media during the considered period of time. Grillo, the
M5S and the NO TAV movement share values, feelings and a sort of counterculture that
oppose the current social system. Their community culture and their civic communitarian
strategy (Misztal 2001) are based on the use of the web to produce and access reliable
information about the social issue of the TAV project carrying out the role of an additional and
independent media accountability system (Tomaszeski et al. 2009: 76). This function aims to
build frames of interpretations and maintain certain worldviews able to challenging social
structures (Jensen 2013: 2005). According to Jensen (2013: 203) communication and culture
are mutually constitutive and they shape each other in a dynamic relationship. In previous
studies the communication level was analysed by a political communication approach more in
line with the current nature of the M5S. The underestimation of the journalistic practices
within the blog entries brought this study to investigate any forms of CJ practice in relation to
a hyperlocal matter such as the NO TAV issue. The majority of reports came from the battle
field and the reasons held by people are treated as matters of local interests such as the
environment protection of the area and the dignity of the inhabitants of the valley. The CJ
actualised by the NO TAV section can be categorised under the resistance model (Wall 2015:

42

803) which acts in opposition to the prevailing political and social power of the system in
which is operating. In the environment of the information society (Castells 2001) citizens who
actively engage in the production of web content are doing acts of journalism (Campbell
2015) and are considered actualising citizens (Bennet et al. 2009). In the present case study
people built a virtual (Allan 2013), interpretative (DeShano 2011) and also local community
(Annette 2009). They acquired a multiple literacy (Kellner 2001) in order to produce video
and photo contents. The people formerly know as the audience (Rosen 2008) have become
produsers (Bruns 2005) and have taken the role of gatekeeping (Tomaszeski et al. 2009:76)
in the media landscape. This study assumes that those qualities have contributed in the M5S
formation that ultimately had implication for the Italian democracy (Goode 2009: 1290). In
this case study a participatory culture (Jenkins et al. 2006) in the civic public sphere (Fraser
2007; Habermas 1991) have led people to gather together for a common cause operating also
through CJ practices.

43

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