Just realised that the lost and found service is called “found items” in French and “lost items” in Italian. This tells you everything you need to know about the deep differences in trust towards institutions and social capital across the Alps.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Methodological contribution: We developed network-based measures for platform "affordances" - visibility (how widely you can be seen) and associability (how easily you can connect). Local vs global variants create different power dynamics.

🔎 We find that 🔎 ...

Theoretical contribution: Platforms wield three forms of power over political actors - instrumentarian (shaping behavior), curation (filtering content), and system administration (controlling access).

Proof day! What a journey this has been... So proud of this work and amazing travel companions.

✅ Meetup groups first grew in civic hubs.
✅ After media spotlight, meetups exploded into low-social capital areas.
✅ Result: more political talk + M5S votes among previously disengaged.

🚨Just out in Journal of Info Tech & Politics🚨
How the Internet helped Italy's Five Star Movement break out of legacy networks and activate politically disengaged voters.

I introduce Internet capital — digital resources enabling mobilization beyond traditional networks and reshaping geography.

Francesco Marolla presenting our paper on cross platform affordances in the #M5S at #cs2italy

I am presenting later today at #CS2Italy our project on using YouTube comments to track social perception of violence. Slides here: fraba.github.io/presentation...

@alexvespi.bsky.social keynote opening #CS2Italy2025 cs2italy.org

This is passion mixed with a bit of insanity