[Commlist] 2023 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication (AssoComPol)

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***2023 Conference of the Italian Association of Political Communication 
(AssoComPol)***

Beyond digital political communication: platforms, algorithm and automation

8-10 June 2023, University of Torino, Italy

https://www.compol.it/eventi/convegno/convegno-2023/

Political communication is going through a phase of deep transformation. 
Communicative environments have reached full digitalization, and this 
new paradigm brings new challenges. The platformization of society and 
the web through its constitutive elements – data, algorithms, 
automations, and interfaces (Van Dijk et al., 2018) – has affected the 
public value of communication and information.

Datafication affects different areas of society, and it is becoming 
increasingly relevant for both the production and communication of 
public policies. It changes the relationship between actors and 
processes. The development of information technologies has enabled the 
application of new analytical methodologies for investigating social 
phenomena by monitoring behaviours that would otherwise be difficult to 
detect (Theocharis & Jungherr, 2020). However, data produced by 
citizens/users and their interactions are not easily and/or fully 
accessible, mainly due to the convergence of proprietary platform logic 
and privacy protection. Access to these data have become increasingly 
difficult, even for academic institutions (Persily & Tucker, 2020).

While data fuel platforms, algorithms allow and rule their functioning. 
From a communication point of view, algorithms represent the 
manifestations and outcomes of media logic and how subjects perceive and 
interpret the latter, contributing to the development and deployment of 
algorithms (Klinger & Svensson, 2018). In this context, the development 
of increasingly advanced generative technologies such as Chat GPT raises 
questions from an ethical perspective and regarding the uses of 
platforms in relation to AI technologies as well.

Algorithms have consistently raised the attention of social research on 
risks and possible consequences, such as the polarization and 
radicalization of public debate. However, successful concepts such as 
echo chambers (Sunstein, 2002) and filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011) seem 
fewer adequate to explain the complexity of the relationship between 
platforms and users. Indeed, polarization dynamics appear to be more 
related to the heterogeneity of opinions encountered on platforms than 
to the action of echo chambers (Tucker et al., 2018). Moreover, 
platforms driven by algorithms seem to widen the range of information 
sources to which citizens/users are exposed (Barberá, 2020) instead of 
“locking them up” in self-referential bubbles. Against this background, 
the success of Tik Tok, based on the algorithmic logic of #foryou 
selection (Newman, 2022), raises new and additional questions for main 
actors in political communication.

Linked to polarization dynamics are also expressions of intolerance, 
hate, and incivility (Mason, 2018) that reinforce dimensions such as 
structural inequalities and biases based on gender, religion, ethnicity. 
These processes appear increasingly present in online public debate, 
especially during specific political events and controversial policies 
(Theocharis et al., 2022). In this case, the prominent role of platforms 
contributes to amplifying their visibility, but also the possibilities 
for detection and analysis through the use of computational methods 
(Theocharis & Jungherr, 2020).

The spread of mis/disinformation is also often linked to the centrality 
assumed by platforms although, among its main causes is the way this is 
“packaged” (Vosoughi & Aral, 2018) beyond the support of coordinated 
online campaigns (Keller et al., 2019). Moreover, the ability to 
influence attitudes and behaviors depends primarily on alignment with 
pre-existing political, moral, beliefs (Freelon & Wells, 2020) and the 
citizens’/users’ level of partisanship (Druckman et al., 2021). Within 
the hybrid media ecosystem, even legacy media are not immune to these 
processes, considering that they are often forced to chase an 
increasingly faster flow of information that is difficult to verify.
Platformization of communication has also affected information 
production and the journalistic profession. The dominance of platforms, 
in fact, has changed the ways through which users find information 
(Nielsen & Fletcher, 2020). However, news shared on social media are 
generally considered less credible, affecting trust in the media in the 
long run (Karlsen & Aalberg, 2021). Furthermore, the processes of 
adapting information to algorithmic logic play a relevant role in 
growing news avoidance (Skovsgaard & Andersen, 2019) and are 
increasingly changing newsmaking and publishing, including legacy media 
trying to remain competitive (Newman, 2023).

Finally, all these processes take place in a scenario that has radically 
changed due to recent dramatic events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and 
the war in Ukraine. The scale of these events, on the one hand, has 
accelerated the digitization of the information ecosystem (Newman, 
2022). On the other hand, it has provided the opportunity for outsider 
actors and new information channels to compete with traditional elites 
by further challenging roles and power relations (Van Aelst & Blumler, 
2022).

Starting from this framework, we encourage the submission of papers 
investigating the impact of platformization processes on the fields of 
political communication, journalism, and all other forms of 
communication. Research that focuses on digital native phenomena and 
forms of communication, but also on traditional ones and their 
adaptation to the new platformed environments, are welcome. We are 
interested in both theoretical essays and empirical studies, and we 
welcome different methodological approaches and research designs 
(quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods).

Issues of interest include (but are not limited to):
- new communication scenarios in the increasingly close and complex 
relationship between political communication and platforms;
- political and government communication strategies, election campaigns, 
and voting in national and international contexts;
- the role of data, platforms, algorithms, and automation (AI, bots, 
etc.) in the processes of political communication and news reporting by 
institutional and non-institutional actors;
- data access policies for purposes of research, campaigning, and 
profiling of the communication message; transparency of platforms and 
related tensions with the privacy paradigm;
- the trends that have emerged in the communication styles of leaders 
and parties in a hybrid and platformized communication ecosystem;
- the technological infrastructure of political participation (digital 
parties, networks, influencers, memes, UGC);
- new repertoires of extra-institutional political communication related 
to protests, social movements, and civil society actors;
- the transformations and controversies of public debate concerning 
processes of ideological and affective polarization, incivility, and 
online and offline forms of discrimination;
changes  in contemporary journalism, with a particular focus on the 
growth of the phenomenon of news avoidance;
- techniques of (computational) propaganda and mis/dis-information in 
conflict scenarios and transformations of news coverage in war contexts;
- methodological proposals and theoretical elaborations to approach the 
transformations of political communication generated in the intersection 
of platform use and communication datafication.

Useful information on how to write an abstract for AssoComPol 
conferences can be found in the section “Abstract instructions”.

- Paper proposals must include: Title, Name of authors, Affiliation with 
email, extended abstract of 600/800 words excluding bibliography, 3 
keywords, and bibliograhpical references.
- Deadline for submission of proposals: April 4 to 
call-for-abstracts-convegno-2023
- Notification of acceptance: April 27
- Full papers must be submitted by June 1 in the conference paper room 
(accessible by login)

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