Alessandro Lovari

The overall goal of this special issue is to investigate the strategic role of public sector communication (Canel, 2012; Canel & Luoma-aho, 2018; Faccioli, 2000) to re-connect voices in the framework of open government (Lathrop & Ruma, 2010). In contemporary society, characterized by a growing sense of distrust in institutions (Edelman, 2018; Rosanvallon & Goldhammer, 2008) and by the impact of digital technologies and social media, different actors are enabled to raise their voices to contribute to policies and public debate, to create and to delivery of public services, but also to protest or obstruct government actions (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Coleman & Shane, 2011). This plurality of voices is not only spread and made visible via the Internet and the social web, but also portrayed in media coverage, and integrated throughout public sector communication strategies and initiatives.
Re-connecting voices means intentionally and strategically aiming at creating flows, platforms and environments where these voices can meet, fertilize and face each other, enabling participation and innovative digital communication practices, fostering civic engagement or revitalizing forms of democracy. Some scholars refer to this area of communication as instilling symmetry or dialogical feedback loops (Grunig, 2000).
In this context, public sector communication can have a strategic role to manage voices and relations with citizens, media, and collectivity (Bartoletti & Faccioli, 2016; Harisson & Wessels, 2013). The use of social media platforms in the institutional communication mix has deeply transformed and rearticulated these relationships and practices (Lovari & Valentini, 2019; Haro-de-Rosario et al., 2018; Warren et al., 2014). The participatory potential of every citizen/user is constantly increasing, so as the opportunities of inclusion and listening of digital and traditional publics for public administrations are wider and often unexplored (Bowen 2013; Massoli & D’Ambrosi, 2014). Nowadays, social media represent one of the most important areas to experiment and improve new forms and practices of public sector communication (Dahlgren, 2009; Kent, 2013; Ducci, 2015).
The special issue aims at investigating the plurality of voices and the re-articulation of communication strategies and practices around open government. The issue will critically reflect the strategic role of public sector communication in building an open government approach, considering the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enable innovative processes and/or to influence citizens’ behaviors in order to achieve specific policy objectives (Capano & Pavan, 2018). In this prospective, open government is investigated also in respect to contexts in which data are produced and disseminated, in order to ensure the effective voices from citizens to be integrated in public policies (Harris &Fleisher, 2017). At the same time, this increased transparency and citizens’ participation could foster digital surveillance. The production of communication enabled by digital platforms makes everything more transparent and controlled, evolving in a digital panopticon in which everyone can be observed and controlled. Surveillance of digital publics, data collection and their manipulation are related problems, and they represent an ethical challenge for public sector organizations and threats for citizens (Lyon, 2018; Zavattaro & Sementelli, 2014).
Moreover, the special issue will focus on how different voices intertwine or conflict in a hybrid, fragmented and corporatized media system characterized by the increasing spreading of problematic information.
From one side, the public sector voice will be taken into consideration, focusing on offline and digital communication implemented by public organizations, investigating ethical, sociological, and political implications. Many questions arise in this context. What are the ethical responsibilities of public sector organizations with regard to citizen engagement? Are public sector organizations prepared to face these challenges? With trust in government at an all-time low, communication can represent a key to building open and accessible discourse, as well as helping to make government both responsible and reflexive? How do public sector communicators can give visibility to citizen voices? What are the skills required to address the challenges?
On the other side, this special issue will focus on citizens’ voices, investigating grassroots communication practices and dynamics of participation in conventional or protest-oriented ways. For instance: how do citizens’ voices engage (or disengage) with governmental and public sector organizations? How do citizens perceive public sector organizations’ communications? What are the effects produced and enabled by open government’s initiatives in different countries? What are the threats of adopting an open government approach in citizens’ perception? What measures should be taken with regard to information, privacy, and the ethical responsibilities of the public sector with digitally-collected information?
Furthermore, other voices, such as NGOs, non-profit associations, and news media, will be taken in consideration for the special issue.

Articles, employing different theoretical, empirical and methodological approaches, should explore one or more of the following thematic areas:
• The evolution of public sector communication models and strategies in the open government framework;
• The value and the role of public sector communication in the participatory processes;
• Strategic communication practices for listening and engaging with citizens’ voices;
• Social media as enabling platforms for trust and participation;
• Rhetoric of technological innovation, misalignments between public sector communication’s strategies and policies, and citizens’ expectations and needs;
• Civic hacking practices, between dissent and proactive communication behaviors;
• Media representation of open government’s value and practices;
• Unheard voices and grassroots communication practices;
• The ethical responsibilities of public sector communication, often in relation to data and privacy in the digital realm.

Timeline:
• Submission of Long Abstracts: 10th November 2019
• Submission of Full Articles: 10th March 2020
• Provision of peer reviewed feedback: 15st May 2020
• Submission of revised accepted articles: 19th June  2020
• Publication of the Special issue: 15th July  2020
Articles should be no longer than 10,000 words, including notes and references. A maximum of 10 articles will be published.
Please refer to the editorial guidelines available at http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions
Abstracts must be sufficiently detailed to allow the PACO editorial board to judge the merits of the paper, including: 
(1) A description of the topic,
(2) The theoretical framework,
(3) Empirical data, time frame and research methods,
(4) Findings.
Abstracts lacking this information will be immediately rejected.

Please address any queries to the Editors
Proposals and papers have to be sent to the guest editors:

alessandro.lovari@unica.it
lucia.dambrosi@unimc.it

James E. Grunig rappresenta fin dagli anni Ottanta del secolo scorso una voce di fama mondiale nella ricerca sulla comunicazione strategica.
All'illustre studioso americano va riconosciuto un decisivo contributo alla fondazione delle relazioni pubbliche come disciplina autonoma attraverso la definizione di teorie e modelli ormai "classici" a livello internazionale: fra questi, la nota Excellence Theory, sulle cui pagine si sono formate le ultime generazioni di ricercatori e professionisti, all'origine di un vivace dibattito disciplinare in diversi Paesi del mondo.
Il volume intende celebrare la lunga carriera, ormai cinquantennale, dello studioso con una prima traduzione dedicata al pubblico italiano: una summa della sua produzione scientifica, promossa con gli auspici dell'autore stesso, la quale punta a diffondere una conoscenza diretta del suo pensiero fra studiosi e studenti universitari di comunicazione e di management, come pure fra addetti e professionisti di settore. Conclude il volume un'intervista inedita, volta a passare in rassegna l'evoluzione della disciplina e delle professioni comunicative in funzione di alcuni temi chiave, quali la digitalizzazione, la globalizzazione e l'etica.

A strategic partnership sealed the collaboration between Intesa Sanpaolo Bank and World Expo 2015, hosted by Italy in Milan. The participation in such global mega-event was supported by a multichannel communication and public relations campaign celebrating an innovative representation of the “Made in Italy” concept applied to the banking sector.
As an official global partner of World Expo 2015, Intesa Sanpaolo wanted to cultivate and reinforce strategic relationships with all its social and market stakeholders such as families, employees, public institutions, no profit organizations, and business partners. In particular, the bank dedicated its own pavilion space in the expo to promote a non-stop program of cultural events, as well as to host four hundreds selected small and medium companies representing Italian excellence.
Indeed, Intesa Sanpaolo distinguished itself as one the most active hub of public relations within the World exhibition by sharing a multiplicity of corporate and cultural messages that were propagated on both digital and traditional platforms, thus activating media and stakeholders’ engagement before, during, and after the event. The objective was to promote collaboration, networking, and the creation of a specific business and relational platform assuring the bank, as project leader, remarkable marketing and reputational outcomes in the middle-long term.

Il  capitolo affronta il tema della comunicazione pubblica e dell’evoluzione delle sue attività e dei suoi strumenti comunicativi in seguito alla rivoluzione tecnologica. In particolare, mette in luce la pluralizzazione e la complessificazione delle interfacce online della Pubblica Amministrazione  che si rivolgono al cittadino, favorite dalla grande penetrazione di Internet e dei social media, intesi sempre più come ambienti socio-comunicativi in cui si sviluppano forme inedite di visibilità istituzionale, unite a innovative pratiche di relazionalità tra amministrazioni, media e pubblici digitali. Viene proposta una modellizzazione della comunicazione pubblica digitale e sono approfondite le implicazione per una comunicazione strategica sui social media.

Using data collected by the Italian National Institute of Statistics on 19,000 Italian adults who had accessed the Internet in 2013, our study investigates the interaction between online health information-seeking behaviors and family obligations among household members. The study presents a detailed picture of the likelihood of online health information searching according to health status and gendered family roles. Findings of binomial logistic regression models highlight that family obligations per se influence the probability of searching, regardless of the health of the seeker and that of family members. Illness, whether affecting the seeker or other individuals within the family network, proves to be another trigger for online health information seeking. Directions for future research and practical implications for public health organizations are discussed.

In the framework of the process of social media adoption by public sector organizations, this paper aims at investigating the use of social media policies in order to effectively communicate and relate with citizens, journalists and other strategic publics. In particular this pilot study analyzes the use and contents of social media policies published by official Facebook social media accounts managed by press offices in Italian municipalities. Based on a qualitative content analysis, this empirical study shows a scarce use of social media policies, a prevalence of legal concerns rather than engaging ones, and a limited attention in managing media relations via social media with journalists and other digital influencers. Limitations and further steps of research are discussed.

The paper deals with heritage branding, investigating communication and PR models promoted by historical companies representing Made in Italy in the global market, in order to focus on their distinctive approach to media relations strategies and related practices. The study has adopted a multi-method approach, involving a panel of companies in the food & beverage sector. In-depth interviews from PR professionals highlight the potential of heritage branding to develop an authentic form of storytelling, based on quality branded contents and the strategic management of corporate history, thus cultivating long-standing relationships with the media.

In this article, we critically analyze the implications of “Epidemic 2.0”—specifically the formative role of social media (as an exemplar of Web 2.0 technology) in disseminating information during epidemics. We use a narrative analysis framework to study the Ebola-related messaging on the official Facebook pages of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the wake of the recent epidemic in Western Africa. Using as our corpus all the messages on these pages between the period of July 1 and October 15, 2014, our analysis traces the development of an ontological Ebola narrative: a specific, historically contingent, ideological plot that reaffirms contemporary Western anxieties around emerging infections. Our analysis focuses on the evolution of this ontological narrative from a) consulting and containment, to b) an international concern, and c) the possibility of an epidemic in the United States.

The aim of the paper is to investigate the use of social media by Italian universities as communication and relational tools. An analysisof the 95 Italian higher education institutions highlightshow nearly halfof the universities (51.6%) have an official presence onat least one social media. In particular,privateinstitutions and small-medium size universities are those that are mostly embracing the relational potentialities of these participatory media. Finally, in order to evaluate the social media performances of theanalysedinstitutions, we introduce the “university social media performance index” (USMPI). Implications for public relation research and practices are discussed.

Questo contributo intende analizzare il processo emergente di colonizzazione del web sociale da parte delle aziende sanitarie italiane. Dopo una rassegna della letteratura più rilevante sul ruolo dei social media nella comunicazione della salute, gli autori presentano i principali risultati di uno studio esplorativo. La ricerca traccia una mappa della presenza delle ASL su Facebook, Twitter e YouTube, analizza il contenuto dei messaggi pubblicati nelle pagine Facebook e delle interviste ai responsabili della gestione dei social media. Emergono caratteristiche, vincoli e prospettive delle trasformazioni che anche in Italia si stanno producendo nella comunicazione della salute con l’adozione dei social media.

Several studies underlined the impact of social media in the public sector, investigating the adoption process and uses of these digital platforms by public administrations. This paper adopts a public-oriented perspective to investigate citizens’ voices and engagement within 10 Italian municipalities’ Facebook Pages. In particular, it investigates the motivations to become Facebook fan of a municipality, and the variety of digital practices carried out by citizens to communicate and relate with this type of public administrations. The study was carried out through the administration of an online survey of 35 questions to 1196 Facebook users. The research proposes an active digital public typology (likers, mono interaction users, multi-interaction users, full interaction users) based on the extension of the activities that citizens carry out on municipalities’ Facebook Pages. The thematic analysis of the digital publics’ opinions reveals that citizens ask for a tangible and actual two-way communication with local administrations on social media. Theoretical and practical implications for public sector institutions using social media are discussed.

An integrated corporate communication campaign carried out over the course of 2012 sealed the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Enel Group, a global leader in the energy sector. In the context of increasing Italian and international interest in the relational value of the company’s history and heritage, Enel’s “Moments” campaign offers a good example of an original, non-conventional and non-rhetorical celebration of an important corporate anniversary. The project integrates a wide range of public relations activities involving all strategic publics: not only the company’s internal community but also shareholders, institutions, local communities, media, and customers in both domestic and international markets

Il presente contributo indaga l’uso dei social media, e in particolar modo di Twitter, da parte delle pubbliche amministrazioni in occasione di eventi critici ed emergenze ambientali. In particolare il paper si concentra sul caso del Comune di Firenze che durante le nevicate del mese di febbraio 2012 ha promosso l’utilizzo, tramite una specifica conferenza stampa, dell’hashtag #firenzeneve per informare i cittadini e i media locali delle possibili criticità e dei disservizi legati alle imminenti nevicate. Una rivoluzione nel modo di fare comunicazione pubblica da parte delle amministrazioni, spesso ancora troppo conservatrici nella definizione di strategie di comunicazione verso la cittadinanza e il sistema dei media. Alla luce della ormai vasta letteratura sulla gestione degli eventi di crisi internazionali attraverso i social
media, si è proceduto ad una analisi quanti‐qualitativa dei 6581 Tweet recanti l’hashtag #firenzeneve pubblicati fra il 31 Gennaio e il 28 Febbraio 2012. Tecniche di social network analysis hanno consentito di esaminare le modalità di propagazione dell’informazione di pubblica utilità relative alla neve, di evidenziare le pratiche comunicative sviluppate dal basso, la struttura delle reti di re‐Tweet di mention e link postati, oltre a tratteggiare una prima mappa delle relazioni digitali tra il Comune di Firenze, il sindaco Matteo Renzi, media locali e singoli cittadini. Le strutture di relazioni emerse dall’impiego di queste tecniche di
analisi quantitativa, insieme alle interviste in profondità con i soggetti che hanno ideato e gestito la campagna all’interno dell’amministrazione comunale, hanno orientato la successiva analisi del contenuto dei Tweet.

English: This paper investigates the use of social media, and especially Twitter, by public administrations during critical events and environmental emergencies. In particular, the paper focuses on the case of the Minucipality of Florence during the snowfall of February 2012 promoted the use of hashtag #firenzeneve to inform citizens and local media of possible problems and inefficiencies related to the impending snowfall. The paper reports a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the 6581 Tweet containing the hashtag # firenzeneve published between January 31 and February 28, 2012. Using techniques of social network
analysis we examined the propagation of information
related to snowfall, and we highlighted the communicative practices developed by the citizens and the structure of the networks of re-Tweet, mention and link posted.  This analysis  outlines a first digital map of relationships between the City of Florence, the Mayor Matteo Renzi, local media and individual citizens.

Il lavoro indaga, attraverso un caso di studio, le potenzialità dei social network sites (SNS) quali strumenti di ascolto per la pubblica amministrazione. A tal fine è stata realizzata una websurvey che ha coinvolto i cittadini di età compresa tra i 18 e i 24 anni residenti nel Comune di Spello (PG), utilizzando come canale di contatto il SNS Facebook. La ricerca ha messo in luce come i social network sites possano rivelarsi utili canali di ascolto per la pubblica amministrazione al fine di indagare la percezione dei servizi e mettere in luce bisogni e consumi comunicativi dei cittadini, in particolare delle fasce più giovani della popolazione.

English:
New listening strategies for Public Administration. Monitoring citizens’ satis-
faction through social network sites
by Alessandro Lovari and Lorenza Parisi
This paper aims to analyze the opportunities offered by the social network
sites (SNS) as tools for public administrations to listen to citizens’ voices. For this purpose a web survey delivered via Facebook took place in Spello, a municipality located in Central Italy, involving young citizens (18-24 years old) and analyzing their satisfaction as customers. The research has highlighted how SNS can help and become useful and strategic channels for public administrations by monitoring citizen satisfaction toward services provided by local governments and by identifying citizens’ relational needs and communicative consumptions, above all those of the youngest members of the population.

A Web survey involving 293 citizens in Siena, Italy, revealed how perceived relationship quality with a municipality and prior experiences of residence can create strategic value for local governments.
In particular, the quality of relations with citizens makes these holders of good relationships view civic problems as less problematic, although the problems impact residents’ interests. Implications for public relations research and practices are discussed, as well as the specific role played by digital and social media in citizens’ active communication behaviors related to negative civic issues.

The aim of this chapter is to describe how the use of social media, especially the use of social network sites, is influencing public communication strategies and online users’ interactions. We conducted an exploratory analysis of the prevalent use of Facebook pages by Italian municipalities examining the characteristics of the online interactions emerging in the communication strategies of four Italian provincial capitals: Rimini, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Venezia. We compared the four municipality pages on Facebook looking at the number of users, age composition, and gender. Then we carried out a content analysis to describe the prevalent kinds of posts published in the municipality Walls on Facebook. We concluded that Italian municipalities are now adopting different communication strategies on Facebook: each municipality proposes a particular content mix that creates a specific communication flow addressed toward citizens.

The aim of the paper is to understand to what extent students desire direct interaction with their universities through social media. This main research question seems to be relevant
because it is one of the issues still open in the literature concerning the evolution of university communication and the use of new technologies. Universities have already understood the primary role new technologies can play in building new and effective communication strategies. Moreover students are defined multichannel teens who spend hours on Internet to
interact with their peers and to manage relations with the public. Social network sites represent a challenge for colleges which need to understand whether students desire a relationship with them using these tools or perceive it as a ‘marketing intrusion’.
Previous studies have not brought conclusive results on these issues. Thus we conducted a survey to understand what the students’ real perception of the direct presence of universities
on Facebook is, and also to identify the contents and information students wish to share with colleges and the tools they would prefer to use within these platforms. The survey was carried out at the Sapienza University of Rome and it was conducted ‘offline’ using questionnaires

Edizione originale: J. E. Grunig, M. A. Ferrari, F. França, Relações públicas: Teoria, contexto e relacionamentos (Public relations: Theory, context, and relationships), Difusao Editora, São Paulo, Brazil, 2009).

James E. Grunig rappresenta fin dagli anni Ottanta del secolo scorso una voce di fama mondiale nella ricerca sulla comunicazione strategica. All’illustre studioso americano va riconosciuto un decisivo contributo alla fondazione delle relazioni pubbliche (RP) come disciplina autonoma attraverso la definizione di teorie e modelli ormai «classici» a livello internazionale: fra questi, la nota «Excellence Theory», sulle cui pagine si sono formate le ultime generazioni di ricercatori e professionisti, la quale ha dato vita a un vivace dibattito disciplinare in diversi Paesi del mondo.
Il volume intende celebrare la lunga carriera, ormai cinquantennale, dello studioso con una prima traduzione dedicata al pubblico italiano: una summa della sua produzione scientifica, promossa con gli auspici dell’autore stesso, la quale punta a diffondere una conoscenza diretta del suo pensiero fra studiosi e studenti universitari di comunicazione e di management, come pure fra addetti e professionisti di settore. Conclude il volume un’intervista inedita, volta a passare in rassegna l’evoluzione della disciplina e delle professioni comunicative in funzione di alcuni temi chiave, quali la digitalizzazione, la globalizzazione e l’etica.

In this article, we criticallyanalyze the implications of“Epidemic 2.0”—specifically the formative role of socialmedia (as an exemplar of Web 2.0 technology) in disseminating information during epidemics. We use anarrative analysis framework to study the Ebola-related messaging on the official Facebook pages of the WorldHealth Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the wake of the recent epidemic inWestern Africa. Using as our corpus all the messages onthese pages between the period of July 1 and October15, 2014, our analysis traces the development of an ontological Ebola narrative: a specific, historically con-tingent, ideological plot that reaffirms contemporary Western anxieties around emerging infections. Ouranalysis focuses on the evolution of this ontologicalnarrative from a) consulting and containment, to b) aninternational concern, and c) the possibility of an epidemic in the United States.

This paper proposes a new way of classifying publics in terms of their adoption and use of digitalised communication technologies. A CATI (computer aided telephone interview) survey of 1,014 citizens revealed that people in Siena, Italy, show different patterns and gaps in adopting new media and technologies as well as in using them in their civic participation and engagement. Based on the survey results, four types of publics are suggested (inactive, analogical, hybrid, and digital publics) and a demographic profile of each public including age, gender, and education is provided. The relationships among public types, level of education, and gender on civic knowledge and civic conversation are examined. The implications for public relations scholarship, and practices are discussed. In addition, the possibility of an emerging social digital public is discussed.