Minister Salvini's Political Strategy During the Diciotti Case: the Role Of

Department of Political Science Chair of Political Sociology Minister Salvini’s political strategy during the Diciotti case: the role of social media in shaping electoral support Elena Avigliano Professor Michele Sorice Matr. 083812 SUPERVISOR CANDIDATE AcaDemic Year 2018/2019 Index Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………… 4 Chapter I: Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………………… 7 1. Concept Specification…………………………………………………………………………… 7 1.1 Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants……………………………………………… 7 1.2 Defining Populism……………………………………………………………………… 6 2. Theories…………………………………………………………………………………………... 9 2.1 Self-Categorisation Theory…………………………………………………………….. 10 2.2 Framing Theory………………………………………..…………………………..…... 11 2.3 Mediatisation of politics theory………………………………………………….…….. 13 Chapter II: Historical Background………….…………………………………………...………15 1. From Bossi’s Northern League to Salvini’s “National” League………………………………...15 Chapter III: An Overview of the Diciotti Case…………………………………………………..19 1. The Ten Days of the Diciotti……………………………………………………………………..19 2. The Aftermath of the Diciotti Case………………………………………………………………23 2 Chapter IV: How Salvini’s social media shaped the Diciotti case……………………………...28 1. Methodology……………………………………………………………………………………..28 2. Analysing Salvini’s Social Media during the Diciotti case………………………………………31 2.1 August, September, and October 2018: how the Diciotti case was initially portrayed…31 2.2 Salvini’s handling of the Diciotti case on social media until March 2019……………...35 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………..40 Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………………………42 Appendix B……………………………………………………………………………………….…45 Appendix C………………………………………………………………………………………….48 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….......50 3 Introduction The political landscape in Italy has radically changed during the last six years. National elections held in 2013 were won by the centre-left coalition with almost 30% of the votes, followed by the centre-right coalition with 29%, and by the Five Star Movement with 26% of the votes. Five years and three governments later, elections held in March 2018 had a dramatically different outcome. Given that there was no actual coalition on the left nor on the right side of the political spectrum, individual parties were not able to reach the formal majority required by the electoral law to form a government. The Five Star Movement got 33% of the votes, followed by the Democratic Party (19%), the League (18%), and Forza Italia (14%). Some scholars believe that three elements in this outcome prove the existence of the start of a third phase in the post-war Italian political system (Busilacchi 2019). The first one is the replacement of bipolar, left-right competition by an imperfect tripolar system. The second is the emergence of a new framework of political competition with new emerging cleavages, one of them being the opposition between parties belonging to the main European political tradition and anti-system parties. Finally, it has been argued that a transformation is underway in the democratic system itself. While the latter was previously based on political stability and regular alternation, it is possible that the 2018 Italian election was the advent of a new phase characterised by instability. The array of issues that Italian governments have to face is vast, but one issue has always been a particularly sensitive and conflicting area of intervention: migration. The refugee crisis, started in 2013, put Italy in a critical position, with more than 170,000 migrants arriving in the EU through the Central Mediterranean Route in 2014 alone (Frontex 2015). The migrant crisis has generated “widespread public panic in Italian society, the origins of which are rooted in the pre-existing problems of a country wracked by economic recession and the structural legitimation crisis of its political system” (Gattinara 2017, p. 327). Many West European countries have seen the establishment of right-wing populist parties in their political system. Their opposition to immigration and multicultural society is the key to their electoral success (Mudde 2013), and Italian parties were no exception. In fact, it could be argued that the League led by Matteo Salvini was the true winner of the 2018 national election. While in 2013, still under the name of Northern League and in coalition with Silvio Berlusconi’s party, it was only able to get 4% of the votes nationwide, the last election saw the party’s popularity skyrocketing. The League got almost 18 percent of the votes, and it is now part of the government along with the Five 4 Star Movement. Its leader, Matteo Salvini, is currently holding the position of Minister of the Interior, which is of crucial importance for security and immigration issues. In such a fragmented political scene, communication via social media has proven to be increasingly important in order to understand how and why parties and leaders gain people’s approval. The study of political communication was first approached by American scholars during the Fifties. Between 1965 and 1990, however, a growing number of studies on this subject were conducted also in Europe. This led to the development of an autonomous European research field with the adoption of a holistic perspective which analysed not only the electoral behaviour of an individual, but the entire communicative process. Moreover, the analysis of the interaction between the media and the public was performed thanks to hybrid and comparative studies that detached themselves from a focus on single countries. Politics and communication, two apparently separated worlds, have evolved to the point of becoming a new entity, that is political communication. The interdisciplinary nature of the subject and its complexity make finding a proper definition very difficult. In the words of Gianpietro Mazzoleni (2012), political communication can be defined as the exchange and the discussion of contents which have a public and political interest, and which are produced by the political system, by the media, and by the citizens-electors. In the current Italian political arena, communication is becoming more and more relevant in order to shape public opinion and attract new portions of society into the electorate. “New media”1, including social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, have changed the way political communication is produced. They have also provided politicians with new instruments which can be used in order to spread the ideas that constitute the foundations of their political agendas. An interest in how current Italian leaders’ political communication via social media is able to reflect the country’s social tension is what lies behind this dissertation. Ever since the government led by the M5S and the League took office, social networks have been heavily used as tools by the parties’ leaders in order to clarify their decisions and justify their political moves. In particular, the League’s secretary and current Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, is known for his daily use of social media and his eagerness to appear as a politician who is close to its electorate. During the summer of 2018, newspapers and news agencies from all around the world covered a sequence of events tied to the behaviour of Minister Salvini following the arrival of the Italian coastal guard ship Diciotti in the Sicilian harbour of Catania after rescuing almost 200 people at sea. 1 New media include mass communication media which have developed following the birth of computers. 5 The first chapter will define a theoretical framework which will help in defining the key concepts used in the rest of this dissertation. In order to understand the implications of the Diciotti case, it will be useful to differentiate between the concepts of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, as well as to define the concept of populism. In addition to this, an analysis of three theories which are peculiar to the Diciotti case will be conducted. The second chapter will offer a brief account of the history of the League since its foundation at the end of the Eighties, when it was still a small regional party with a strong independentist agenda. The third chapter will outline an overview of the Diciotti case to have a clear understanding of the facts. Finally, the fourth chapter will examine Salvini’s use of social media by carrying out a discourse analysis of his Facebook posts and tweets, focusing on the Diciotti case and its aftermath. 6 Chapter I: Theoretical Framework 1. Concept Specification The concepts of immigrant and populism are open to numerous interpretations. Since “to define is first of all to assign limits, to delimit” (Sartori 2004, p. 786), this section will be dedicated to concept specification. First of all, it is necessary to provide a precise definition of immigrant. Moreover, a clear definition of a populist party is needed to better understand the nature of the League under Matteo Salvini’s lead. 1.1 Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants Three specific definitions are needed in order to fully grasp the implications of the refugee crisis and how it was framed by Italian populist parties such as the League. The term “immigrant” was, in fact, often misused as to include refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. The 1951 Refugee Convention is a legal document which protects refugees under international law. According to the Convention, a refugee is “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of

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