1. Structure of Communications and Narrative Construction of Social
Movements within Social Networking Sites:
the Purple People’s experience
Mario Orefice1
Versione scritta dell’Intervento tenuto presso l’Università Cattolica di Milano in
occasione del convegno dal titolo “Media industries and grassroots cultural
production in the digital era” (20/09/2012)
Written version of presentation at Catholic University of Milano during the
conference entitled “Media industries and Grassroots Cultural Production in the
Digital Era” (09/20/2012)
I’d like to introduce you to analysis, articulated in the following steps, through which
i have conducted my scientific observation on a research object belonging to the
sub-category of collective actors well-known as “new social movements” which
could be defined, using the words of Alberto Melucci, as “these particular
organizations of groups who struggle not only for re-appropriation of material
structure of production , but, also for collective control upon social development,
then, for re-appropriation of time, space and relationships in individuals everyday
lives.
In other words, New Social Movements could be defined starting from their different
strategic use of the Internet as:
“Net as option” is characteristic both of traditional party institutions and first social
movements which were born simultaneously with the widespread of traditional
Internet applications such as the e-mail. They show an instrumental approach to
online tools, using the Net in order to achieve two main goals: 1) make information
sharing within action groups easier and inexpensive, 2) disseminate outside
oriented communications in order to implement collective awareness around
specific topics. As example, it’s possibile to look at “people of Seattle” as well as
the studies of Della Porta & Mosca around the communicative structure of
movements for global justice.
“Net as exclusive way to prosume information”. At thi stage, the Net is
beginning to be regarded not only as alternative to other forms of communication,
but, as powerful mean in planning actions that, however, still take place offline.
Example, in this case, is the first “meet up” network implemented in order to support
Howard Dean ‘s electoral campaign of 2004.
“Net as birthplace” represents the higher level of political activism tied to use of
web 2.0 digital platforms. Constitution and membership processes as well as action
planning take place entirely online. The Net become crucial both in survival
ensuring and self-reproduction of communicative structure of action mediated by
1
Mario Orefice is PhD candidate at Department of Communication Science (Univ. of Urbino, Italy)

2. online interactions. The case study of Purple People might be considered as
belonging to this sub-group….
Purple People (in italian “Popolo Viola”) was choosen especially because it:
-represents the first italian case of digital network-centred movement;
-it’s a well known social actor since 2009;
- it’s structure is based on an extended digital network of nodes represented by
geo-localized Facebook Public Pages;
-it’s a permament place for discussion around national as well as local or hyperlocal
issues;
-it represent the scene of events and debates generally considered as significant
during social movement’s life like in-depth discussions on whether or not to become
a traditional party or an organization with a more institutional profile….
Starting from Purple People, i will attempt to answer two main reaserch queries
which are: the first “what is communicative structure in which digital network-
centered movement under examination articulates itself ?” and, second, “What are
main features of those individuals who approach and/or affiliate with Purple
People’s Facebook Public Pages ?
Purple People’s online structure consists of 100 Facebook public pages. Difficulties
in applying the traditional sampling techniques pushed me, from the beginnings, to
assume as structural variables some textual elements publicly available in the
pages such as subscripition dates, socio-demographic data and geographic areas
of reference. At the same time, i chose to consider the communicative behaviour
within the pages (mainly expressed trough the frequency rates of production and
sharing of communications) as valid predictor of their internal activity and,
therefore, of their relevance in the economy of Purple People’s network structure.
Above graphs express two clear trends: first represents the presence of a high
number of “silent pages” with a frequency of status updates (comments, posts,
replies or likes) made by page’s administrators between 0 and 1 in 76 pages of 100
belonging to the total sample. Second shows emergence of a small group of almost
10 “strongly active” public pages with, at least, one content updated at the detection
time. Social network analysis (realized through the help of Ghefi) and calculation of
Degree Centrality of Nodes belonging to the network structure confirms the
existence of an active nucleus of 10 Purple People Facebook Pages. On this sub-
group i chose to conduct the analysis of textual contents.
Content analysis was carried out starting from the following macro-areas:
-content type
-information source
-agenda settings
-expression of elements of coordination rather than action
-geographic features as geo-localization of shared contents….
Online questionnaire, instead, was addressed to individuals belonging to all 100
Purple People Facebook public pages. Survey was implemented through an online
form and took place in two different waves. So in order to reduce distortion effects
coming from the low index of responses generally tied to this kind of technique. It’s
consists of 39 questions developed around six macro-areas:
- Structural variables

3. -Internet use
-SNS adoption
- relationship between individuals and domestic political system
- sns and their political potentials
- individuals and purple people online structure…
About content analysis i observe:
- pages appropriation and creative uses especially represented by the presence
of different use and communicative styles in news boards and notes. First are
characterized by an high frequency of contents updating and correlations with
mainstram media agenda. Selection of shared topics, therefore, seems to occur
along a substantial continuity through the pages. Homogenity that could be
understood as reduction of points of view but, at the same time, as strategic
behaviour thorugh which collect polarized opinions and reactions and self-
reproduce a collective digital identity. Notes often represent a detached space from
actuality. They show low index of contents refresh and is considered as privileged
spaces for more structured communications. Both the spaces are, at the same
time, addressed at two different potential publics. First, interested in news boards
contents, is broad and could be represented by potential readers as well as content
producers. Second, interested in notes, is small, but, well-defined. It especially
includes: pages administrators, internal stakeholders and online militants.
- adoption of indipendent information system. It is made by internal sources
organized in two main groups: environments for direct or indirect production of
news. First are extendede newsrooms that periodically collect and produce stories
on particulartly significant topics (VIolablog dot it, VIolapost dot it). Second are
represented by platforms simply dedicated to gather news and information coming
from other sources (IlPopoloVIola doti t, official website of social movement);
transition of communicative products from the national to local level.
Exploring this trend according to a longitudinal perspective it was possibile to find
it’s origins both in many internal struggles and especially in the fall of Berlusconi
government (on November 2011) and its gradual dissapearance from political and
mediatic stages. Once fallen the main enemy, movement was forced to reorganize
its internal priorities. This, on the one hand, brought a reduced action power on the
national level, but, on the other, allowed several local groups to dialogue with local
communities and plan actions in order to safeguard and promote micro-level
issues.
Eesults from online questionnaire were collected around
-Internet and social networking sites...individuals tied to Purple People’s
facebook public pages shows a clear tendence at using the Net especially to “stay
tuned” on current topics and news (83% percent of total sample) and access SNS
(72%). Need to be up to date on news is confirmed by high frequency rates around
two online activities: gain knowledge of news and information through online
networks (78%) and directly contribute to online news construction (67%).
- about Experiences and personal reflections around political system. More
than half pf respondents (68%) say they re very interested in politics and have a
personal experience in such form of political activism. Expressed in forms which are
far from formal organizations such as associations or traditional parties. IN fact,

4. while 9 out of 10 respondents attend a public demonstration of protest and 56%
sign an online petition, only 33% partecipates to political or party official events.
Activities, connections, individual narratives around Purple People. First
contact with PP took place mainly through casual browsing (52%) or online
information sources such as online newspaper, blogs, news aggregators (46%).
Centrality of news and information consumption is confirmed by other two
evidences: 54% of respondents declare to share information they read through
Purple People’s facebook pages; 80% of respondents agree with the statement that
join PP was the right choice especially because they can “get news and information
on topics not enough covered by mainstream media”.
Double level structure in digital network of Purple People revealed the presence of
a large number of dormant Facebook pages. Reasons for this high latency index
could be identified in some internal struggles that led to the birth of confictual
currents. Observing online contents, this general reduction of internal
communications seems to have coincided with crisis and collapse of last Berlusoni
government and, in particular, with the sunset of symbolic/cultural universe of which
he was founder and promoter for almost twenty years (well known with the term
“berlusconismo”). So, transition to forms of micro-activism can be interpreted as
survival strategy to internal cleavages which reduced the social movement’s power
to act at national level.
About methodology, main problems are tied to:
-absence of any theoretical recognition on main analysis techniques on online data;
- proliferation of unique and new case studies which produce new and unique
methodological cases;
-general attention to internal validity (relatives to the coherence of single research)
in place of the external one (expressed in comparable data)…..and finally…
-unavoidable limits in applying or find elements coming from classical statistics
such as: field of analysis, sampling techniques, and representativeness.