Suchergebnisse

The spread of Covid-19 virus all over the world has been accompanied by the online circulation of a relevant number of fake news. In this regard, the World Health Organization coined the term infodemic, that is, "an epidemic of misinformation - spreading rapidly through social media platforms and other outlets that poses a serious problem for public health" (Zarocostas, 2020). In this short essay, we explore the processes of circulation of fake news within the Italian Twittersphere during Covid-19 emergency. Drawing upon the analysis of 7,237,581 tweets, based on a digital methods approach, we conclude that it is not possible to observe a real infodemic within the Italian Twittersphere. Only 1,44% of the tweets collected are fake news, plus they circulate only in very specific periods and within closed communities. Furthermore, the 61% of fake news deals with the topic of immigration: false information that put the blame of coronavirus diffusion on migrants do not represent, per se, a threat to public health; instead, they are part of the strategy adopted by Italian right-wing populist movements to get online visibility for political purposes. In the conclusion, we also propose a reflection on the characteristics and potentials of real-time social research, arguing that it can give a fruitful and authoritative contribution to enhancing the online public debate on contemporary social issues.

This book offers a unique methodological guide for social and marketing scholars interested in understanding and using digital methods to explore the processes of platformisation of consumer culture unfolding on digital media. The book introduces the reader to key digital methods concepts, strategies, and techniques through a set of ad hoc case studies focused on the most prominent digital platforms (such as Facebook, Spotify, or TripAdvisor) as well as emerging trends in digital consumer culture (such as, the consumption of nostalgia, the radicalisation of taste, or ephemeral consumption).

This special issue, together with this position paper that accompanies it, aims at providing a comprehensive framework to address this issue, introducing and theorizing the concept of platformization of consumer culture. The overarching scope of this essay is to discuss what is distinctive of the process of platformization in relation to consumer culture (and research); what are its most important aspects, its critical controversies, its innovative dimensions and main risks. Accompanying this positional essay are the seven exceptional contributions that compose the special issue, which we believe will come to represent a pivotal reference in the quest to address this phenomenon. These showcase the manifold empirical, semantic and methodological dimensions of this emergent phenomenon, concurring to define the key dimensions that identify, describe, and explore the ways in which consumer culture has been "platformized," from the perspective of consumer culture theory. Specifically, we identify four key "tensions" characterizing the platformization of consumer culture: datafication vs liquification; standardization vs ephemerality; interaction vs mediation; immateriality vs materiality.