RISULTATI RICERCA

The paper explores how Italian adolescents use social media to satisfy their health information needs. In particular, it focuses on their daily practices and the criteria they apply to assess social media content’s credibility and reliability, as well as the attribution of (dis)trust towards doctors and medicine. The study is based on a thematic analysis of 51 in-depth interviews with Italian adolescents in three Italian cities. The health topics most cited on Instagram and TikTok concern mental health, eating disorders, sexual behavior and fitness. Data shows a tendency to attribute credibility on social media through perceived competence and, in particular, authenticity: this dynamic, typical of social media, legitimizes believable knowledge, complementary to that of doctors, expressed in the form of first-person accounts by influencers and creators on health topics. Keywords: teenagers; health communication; social media practices; information needs; trust; credibility.

In the broad scenario of EU’s policies and strategies, aimed at fighting discrimination and fostering inclusive society, through an intersectional approach, serial dramas play a pivotal role both in shaping social discourses and raising people’s awareness about disability. By examining historical and contemporary representations, the study highlights a shift from stigmatizing portrayals to more nuanced and empowering narratives. It also underlines how the contemporary participatory and convergent culture empowers the audience engagement through processes of active fandom, which also involve the decoding process of serial narratives. The transformative potential of these media forms, however, requires media literacy to foster deeper engagement and real-world impact.

Digital accessibility is essential to provide inclusive services, and should always be respected in a sector such as digital health, where the target is extremely varied. This manuscript aims to inspect the state of accessibility of eHealth services in the Italian market. Through an assessment of 3 different services, the authors want to highlight their main strengths and weaknesses, in order to understand the opportunities still to be exploited and the challenges to be overcome, also depending on the Italian and European regulations that establish rigid constraints, but do not consider, at the moment, the digital health sector. The results indicate that the level of accessibility is not satisfactory yet, with some good peaks, but many aspects to be improved, in particular on how information is structured and presented.

This study examines the provisions of health services for migrant women in Italy, focusing on midwifery and childbirth care. It analyses the challenges posed by demographic transitions within the Italian healthcare system. Conducted in Calabria between October and November 2024, the field-research has involved migrant women, midwives and reception operators in order to grasp personal experiences and systemic issues. Findings reveal critical gaps in reproductive health services, especially regarding cultural differences, legal barriers, and institutional inefficiencies. The medicalization of childbirth, as standardizing care, often marginalizes migrant women’s experiential knowledge, emphasizing the need for more inclusive practices. This study underscores the importance of culturally sensitive policies and practices to ensure equitable healthcare access and bridge gaps between formal health services and informal community support.

The transition phase of the development model that is underway requires a move towards an economic and social system that is sustainable for the environment and for people. This landing involves not a simple integration or updating of current value creation models, but a real paradigm shift. The role of work and social inclusion systems in this dimension is central because the relationship between society and the economy takes place precisely through the function of work and welfare. Policies and interventions to promote sustainability therefore pass through a revision of labour and social security systems and in the affirmation of the ‘human-centric’ dimension of the use of technologies and artificial intelligence in particular. In this perspective, it becomes interesting to analyse the choices and policies promoted in Italy, a nation that is experiencing this transition phase while having to manage the impact of a critical demographic trend.

This study examines the crisis communication strategies employed during the Bargi-Suviana hydroelectric plant explosion in April 2024, aiming to explore the interplay between digital communication tools, organizational strategies, and the broader context of a multistakeholder crisis. Combining media content analysis of digital outputs and in-depth interviews with key informants, the research investigates the self-produced crisis communication of four key stakeholders – Enel, the Civil Protection Department, the Emilia-Romagna Region, and the National Fire Brigade – focusing on the integration of social media practices into broader crisis management plans. Findings reveal that communication strategies were shaped by both the nature of the crisis and the different roles and competencies of the involved organizations. The study further uncovers a range of deliberate and emergent communication strategies, highlighting the challenges of balancing digital and localized responses to address the humanitarian and environmental dimensions of the crisis.

Transitions toward sustainability permeate a broad spectrum of public actions and are expressed across multiple levels and domains of a connected society, influencing the relationship between citizens and institutions. The pivotal role that public administration (PA) plays in these complex processes underscores the need to critically examine the centrality of public communication. This paper proposes a definition of institutional public communication for sustainability and outlines a typology comprising three principal area/types of communication, distinguished by their respective objectives: communication of and for public action on sustainability, communication of the sustainable public administration, communication for sustainability.

The “One Health” (OH) approach highlights the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health, emphasizing collaboration across disciplines to address complex global challenges such as pandemics, climate change, and antimicrobial resistance. Despite its academic and institutional prominence, OH remains poorly understood by the public, with limited awareness and trust in its feasibility. This study, based on a CAWI survey of 1,500 European citizens, reveals significant knowledge gaps, with only 15% recognizing OH as a label and 24% understanding the concept when explained. While interest in OH is high, trust in its implementation lags behind. Citizens’ perceptions also favor tangible over systemic benefits. Bridging this gap requires clearer communication, supportive policies, and actionable strategies to translate OH from theory into practice, fostering its integration into daily life and global health governance.

This manuscript, starting from scientific evidence linking cigarette smoking with the occurrence of genetic mutations and increased risk of cancer, aims to investigate the motivations behind the growing tobacco consumption among adolescents. As the costs of healthcare systems are always rising, solutions are needed to improve sustainability, by aiming at prevention and awareness programs. Through a survey addressed to students, the authors have studied the reasons behind the smoking-related behavior, in order to define the most suitable techniques for a prevention program. Results indicate that family and friends can affect the decisions of young people, so any planned intervention should target them too, through the involvement of parents and peer support groups. Equally important is the school environment. This work aims to make an important contribution to the understanding of the challenges of tobacco use among adolescents and demonstrates the effectiveness of targeted interventions to counter this issue in the school community from both a sociological and pedagogical/educational perspective.

Several authoritarian regimes of the 20th century had in common the implementation of an «authoritarian urban planning» (Haeringer, 2002), while the reorganisation of space was seen as a tool for the transformation of society according to political ideals. The housing conditions of the working classes and the management of slums were often important issues in such planning policies, as we can observe in the case of the Brazilian Military dictatorship (1964-­1985). The paper analyses the intervention of the regime towards informal neighbourhoods through the case of Belo Horizonte. The reflection focuses on a military intervention targeting all the favelas of the city and their residents’ unions, examined through police investigation reports, press articles and reports of municipal council debates. The analysis leads us to reflect on the modes of political management of urban informality during the Brazilian military regime. Through our case study, we propose a typology of the different modi operandi adopted by the dictatorship towards favelas, from the strict slum clearance policies to the financial disengagement, through to the «progressive unslumming» trend. Based on the specificity of the urban policies developed in these territories by the regime, the article highlights some aspects that would reinforce the sui generis social-­legal condition of the favela in the Brazilian city.

Le occupazioni di terreno, conosciute in Cile come tomas, sono state strategie informali di insediamento, oppure le azioni più emblematiche di un movimento sociale urbano, quello dei pobladores? L’ipotesi sviluppata nell’articolo suggerisce che, sebbene le occupazioni siano da intendere come azioni complesse, mosse da molteplici obiettivi, nel caso cileno sia prevalsa la componente rivendicativa. Quindi, possono essere studiate come eventi di protesta. Attraverso una ricognizione degli articoli apparsi sulla stampa del tempo e sulle fonti d’archivio, è stato possibile ricostruire una serie omogenea di occupazioni realizzate a Santiago tra il 1954 e il 1973, che sono state analizzate al fine di comprendere quali attori parteciparono e che rapporti stabilirono con il sistema istituzionale e politico. Si è potuto constatare che le tomas furono sensibili ai cambiamenti del contesto. Tra il 1954 e il 1970 sono stati identificati un centinaio di eventi. Anche in conseguenza di una dura repressione, le occupazioni riuscirono a formare insediamenti in poche occasioni, ma furono efficaci nell’influenzare le politiche pubbliche. Invece, tra il 1970 e il 1973, l’atto di occupare perse visibilità, ma divenne molto efficace nel creare insediamenti. Nonostante queste modalità diverse, attraverso le occupazioni i pobladores riuscirono a conquistare un posto nella città, anche se periferico e riuscirono a conquistare dei diritti, anche se incompleti.

Con la crescita delle città sudamericane nel XX secolo, gli insediamenti informali si sono diffusi rapidamente. Hanno iniziato a essere una parte importante del discorso sull’urbanizzazione e sono diventati oggetto di politiche pubbliche. In questi spazi sono sorte diverse organizzazioni, sostenute da sindacati, partiti politici, chiese cattoliche o protestanti, centri di culto, associazioni ricreative o di quartiere. È possibile osservare che in alcuni insediamenti informali e in determinati momenti storici sono sorte rivendicazioni urbane e associazioni comunitarie. Se a volte sono rimaste in una dimensione locale e sono scomparse piuttosto rapidamente, altre volte si sono trasformate in movimenti di protesta e mobilitazione più sostenuti, o in organizzazioni più strutturate. Il numero monografico si interroga sui processi di politicizzazione avvenuti negli insediamenti informali di cinque città sudamericane nel periodo che va dalla fine della Seconda guerra mondiale agli anni Settanta. L’introduzione inquadra le ricerche nel contesto sudamericano, per poi analizzare sia le peculiarità di ciascun caso, sia alcuni temi trasversali, che forniscono ipotesi di lavoro per ricerche future.