ICS Magzine - January 2014 - full by ICS Pomilio Blumm

I D E A S , P E O P L E , S T R AT E G I E S A N D S O L U T I O N S T H AT C O M M U N I C AT E

01 2014 ISSN 2281-3365

Jung Chang

When China was the "heart of darkness"

Geoff Mulgan To share or to have, that is the question

Pierre Zémor Communication, a cure to decline

Harper Reed

CONTENT CLOUD Under the aegis of Confindustria Assafrica & Mediterraneo Department of Communications and social research of the “Sapienza” University in Rome Transparency International Italy Italian Association of Semiotic Studies

01.2014 Content cloud From Big Data to Big Answers

Network Engagement

Harper Reed

Thanks to Vincenzo Boccia, Silvia Tartamella, Simona Di Luzio, Antonia Magnacca, Fausto Lupetti, Valentina Bazzarin, Linda Serra, Francesco Mazzucchelli, Università di Bologna, Rita Zilletti, Osservatorio di Pavia

Betsy Hoover

(S)marketing

As flowers in honey

Sharing the Future

Small is (still) beautiful?

The imperative of immediacy

At the heart of participation

The long way to transparency

Oscar Blumm

Jung Chang

Geoff Mulgan

Vincenzo Boccia

Pierre Zémor

Stephen Clark

Ron Patz

Citizen-consumer

Welcome (back) to the future

Europe in the mirror

The city of the people

Young codes in digital society

Under the aegis of DIPARTIMENTO DI COMUNICAZIONE E RICERCA SOCIALE

Harper Reed

Betsy Hoover

Jung Chang

Geoff Mulgan

Vincenzo Boccia

Pierre Zémor

Stephen Clark

Ron Patz

Davide Del Monte

Susanna Ferro

Francesco Mazzucchelli

Stefano Mosti

Davide Del Monte and Susanna Ferro

Francesco Mazzucchelli

Stefano Mosti

Roberta Paltrinieri

Cosimo Mirko Vessio

Roberta Paltrinieri

Cosimo Mirko Vessio

Beyond the cover Editorial by Franco Pomilio

The wind of change is blowing through the land of communication. After twenty years, the undisputed metaphor of the digital revolution - the web - is being overturned by a new more nuanced, poetic but equally powerful one: the cloud. Not just one, but many. A whole sky, full of bits. Clouds of data, applications, services. Ultimately, content clouds. Billions of data, sublimated and left free to fluctuate without any support and to condense whenever and wherever needed or desired. That’s what the change is really about: not so much about the passage from a strong and engineering image of the network to the weaker and ”fuzzy” of the cloud, but in the gliding – Hoped? Unexpected? Predictable? - from the instruments to the contents. Because that is where the future of communication is looking at: the contents. Whether they are big data or creative projects, shared resources or life stories, “what” is becoming more relevant than “how”. After years of deterministic euphoria for the helpful power of media, the substance of information is the heart of the matter once again. A substance moving from place to place, yet remaining true to itself, while new marketing paradigms try to grasp,

cage and maybe change it into more rigid models. It is hard to tell where all this will take us. For now, only one certainty: as Harper Reed warns us, the real problem is not the answers but the questions. What questions should those hybrid individuals that we call citizens-consumers, whose consciousness is rising higher, ask themselves? Likewise, what should institutions, which are undergoing momentous changes and are supposed to have a dialogue with citizens, ask themselves? This means then, for both of them, to understand how the role of public communication is evolving within the new communication cloud. For civil society and Institutions, it is about how to move along together in order to define new behavioural and dialogue models, more flexible but at the same time faithful to that “informational essence” the media superpower has nearly overshadowed for too many years. However, today, the cover is transparent, if not totally disappeared, leaving its content free at last. It doesn’t matter if the substance released is nothing less than vapour, spread into thousands of streams and particles. It only means that it can become anything, adapting itself to possible futures. Free to sneak everywhere.

From Big Data to Big Answers by Harper Reed*

Listen, Engage and Facilitate. These are Harper Reed’s three musts. He guided a team of “computer wizards” and conducted the online communication campaign ushering in Obama’s reelection in 2012. A successful story that comes from far away, precisely from an Apple II

* A transcription of the speech given by Harper Reed during the first edition of the International Communication Summit Europe, held in Brussels on September 26th, 2013

THE ORIGINS OF A MYTH On the previous page, Steve Jobs at the time of the launch of Apple II, the first personal computer

Two elections, two campaigns, same candidate. Between 2008 and 2012, many things changed for Barack Obama, and among these, his campaign’s communications strategy: amateur the first one, more sophisticated and aware four years later. Nothing could stress the change better than plunging into Harper Reed’s world, an extravagant hacker from Colorado, more comfortable inside his garage full of dismantled computers than inside the general headquarters of a million dollar campaign. As CTO of Obama’s team, he has conquered voters screen-byscreen, with a strong belief: communities are not to be guided or created but may only be facilitated. What is meant with “only” is a completely

We knew how to speak to the single voter but we needed something else: to listen. Tim O’Reilly made me think about it. One day he said to me: “Harper, let the micro-targeting go. Focus on the micro-listening”

Network Engagement Betsy Hoover is young, very young. She is tall and athletic and has a firm handshake. When she smiles (as it often happens) her mouth as well as her blue eyes turn upwards, just like commas. In her short official biography, we read that she deals with “digital procedures and strategies”. A definition largely understated for a girl that, younger than thirty, was the director of the digital organization of Obama’s campaign. We met her in Bologna, where she made a brilliant speech during the event “From Obama to the future, Engagement & Power in an Interconnected World”. Popularity and consensus. What has changed between the two Obama’s mandates? Without doubt, the two campaigns were very different. In 2008 Obama was a novelty, a very young senator, almost unknown to many electors. We were a breath of fresh air and we translated this in our message and in the general strategy. Our goal was simply to be elected. In 2012, the picture

different story. Here is the story he told us at the last ICS in Brussels.

The 2012 campaign for Barack Obama’s re-election, as we all know, was a success. From my point of view, I am happy to say: I was there. In addition, I was there with a terrific team that did a great job. It was hard, exciting, even funny, but overall it was instructive. However, among the many things I learned from this experience, the most important one regards the nature and functioning of communities. For example, I have learnt that their role is fundamental in engaging voters. Above all, I have understood that communities cannot be controlled; to the most, we may support them in freeing their own force. Before realizing it, I came a long way. For this reason, before telling you about Obama and so forth, I have to tell you about one of my favorite topics: myself.

I’m a hacker! We live in a digital world. The web culture surrounding us affects each aspect of our lives. Nevertheless, how did all start? Well, if I think about how I started, the day when two guys from Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, presented the world their Apple II, the first true personal computer, comes to my mind. The hacker culture and ethics began then. Everything started in the ‘60s, inside the MIT walls, and the highest point was reached in the ‘80s, with the success of Mac, Windows and so on. That was a milestone. There is a book by Steven Levy, called “Hackers! The heroes of the digital revolution” that tells this story. Reading it as a boy, I realized right away that I shared many of their ideas, such as collaboration, the freedom of access

and the “Hands on Imperative” principle (one of the “commandments” of hackers’ moral code, to whom “the access to computers and anything that may teach about how the world works, should be unlimited and total” Ed.). This is how I suddenly realized: I am a hacker! I began identifying with it and feeling like a hacker. Not the kind committing crimes, but a person eager to find out what is behind closed doors, to take apart and to put things together in order to learn how they work and perhaps to improve them. Having worked for a while as a software engineer facilitated that and made me become not only a hacker but also a coder.

me, even if I was totally different. I later found out that I was exactly what he needed: someone completely different. That is what Slaby would answer to those - and there were many - asking : why Harper? Right: why someone like me? Actually, the heart of the question was not me, but rather the campaign, so different from the one realized four years before. In 2008, Obama was a candidate as any other, almost unknown; a sort of “rebel of politics”, and his campaign was instinctive and light. In 2012, the rebels had become an enterprise. We had to be determined and prepared, to know how mechanisms functioned, and we had to make them work in any circumstance. We needed to tear apart and put

was different: Obama was the President in charge, and the country was living a very difficult moment. Our priority was to give answers to these difficulties. The heart of the campaign had however remained the same, i.e. about the type of person Obama is, as a man and as a candidate. What had changed was the way citizens’ questions were answered. How much had the media panorama changed? A great deal. In 2008 Twitter and Facebook were at the beginning and technology was not so widespread. In 2012 American social media were a reality and we could not but strongly invest in digital strategies. I would say that in 2008 there was a great desire for change, while in 2012 there was a need to, above all, get involved, to still feel part of a project that had started four years before. Which are the most innovative platforms for participation and engagement? Code for America is a beautiful platform, which is achieving great results. There is also great enthusiasm regarding themes such as health related services. We must keep an eye on the new “targeted” social media as well, such as NextDoor, one of my favorites. It is similar to Facebook, but it puts you in touch with your neighbors, using the web potential to reinforce real neighborhood bonds, such as organizing security services or other basic needs, for example. The results are incredible: it is not a case if the first private investments are beginning to come in? Valentina Bazzarin

With this background, at a certain point, I found a job in a company called Threadless: a great success and lots of fun and excitement. It lasted for a few years, but the time to change came in 2009. I took the most important decision of my life, something that at least once in a life a person should do: I quitted. From then on, I started a new type of vision quest: an experience outside the normal boundaries, that made me understand how big companies work, and how winning teams are built. This helped me to get ready for my next challenge: Obama for America. Yes, we code! It was 2011 when Michael Slaby, CTO of the previous campaign, a born politician, really experienced and one of the smartest people I have ever worked with, pulled me into it. He wanted

things back together: to behave like hackers! I remember that, when I spoke to my wife about it, she reminded me of this Japanese saying: “mocha wa mochiya”. Meaning: if you want a rice cake, you go to the rice cake store. In its simplicity, it grabs the point. One of the political campaign’s problems is that the trend is to do almost everything within the team, using, to the most, as outside resources, motivated and inexpensive volunteers... In 2008, most of the labor force was made of volunteers and it worked, but in 2012, it could not be enough: the first thing we did then was to hire forty among the best computer engineers in the world. We sought them in the most important ICT companies: from Google to Twitter, to Craglist to Quora and so forth. The ideal was to stand on the shoulders of giants, because the challenge was not to invent new things but to find a better way of do-

THE TEMPLE OF TECHNOLOGY The term “crowdsourcing” was invented by the MIT experts to define the production model created by the society Threadless

ing them. The result: if in 2008 there were 12, in 2012 there were 120 technicians, about 650 people in Chicago’s general headquarters, 6000 more in the whole territory and 3 million volunteers: massive! The right questions In this scenario, the must was just one: execution. Act and realize. To do so, we made Narwhal, a very simple platform that would ease internal communications allowing us to focus on our “product”: a mix of media tools specifically created with a goal to engage our voters. In addition to all social media, the media mix included, for example, a call tool, an application allowing volunteers to communicate not only with the organization but also with sponsors, and a dashboard to share the work within the team. There were also many mobile apps specifically created in a web responsive mode, so that they could be used on any type of device and technology.

The so-called big data played a fundamental role, different from what it could be expected. Today there is a lot of discussion about big data: it is a great innovation and we all speak about them always underlining the idea of “big”. I prefer to concentrate myself mainly on

I suddenly realized: I am a hacker! Not the kind committing crimes, but a person eager to take apart and to put things together in order to learn how they work and perhaps to improve them “data”. Marketing and companies are scared of them and, to analyze them, they spend great fortunes in software, but the truth is, believe me, that all you need is an excel sheet. The difficulty is not processing data, but making the right questions. If you make the right questions, you will get the right answers. This is why I say: big data aren’t at stake, but so are big answers. First of all: an email Once the “big” factor is out of the way, we may focus on what really matters: data. Yet making which questions? Essentially, we used them to make “micro targeting” or to establish a oneto-one dialogue with the target. Despite everything told by the media at that time, about

“Obama’s nuclear codes”, meaning perhaps that we had some sort of secret computer weapons in our hands, we used a very simple instrument: emails. Emails work well and always work if you use them in the right way, exploiting available data at best. For instance, during the campaign, one of Obama’s voters could have received an email inviting him to donate a very precise amount, “geared” ad hoc to his previous donation history. And, that was exactly what happened! This is what I mean when I say ”making the right questions”. Along the same line, the digital team elaborated a solution that I believe is very innovative for social media. The idea was to use the campaign’s Facebook account not only to share contents, but also to address emails better, personalizing them in the best way possible. To put it bluntly: you could receive an email inviting you to remember your friends to vote not in a general way, but suggesting as recipients your principal influencers and the ones you influenced the most. The same was done with sms and Twitter. From micro-targeting to micro-listening All these innovations helped us elaborate a better distribution of contents, addressing the right peo-

ple with the right contents, not giving the same message to everyone, but about what mattered the most for them. The result was an amount of donations for about 750 million dollars, most of them received thanks to emails. Above all, this proved to be a more efficient, fast and focused contact with voters, because this is, narrowed down, the mysterious secret weapon of microtargeting. Nonetheless, something was missing. We knew how to speak to the single voter but we needed something else: to listen. My friend and publisher Tim O’Reilly made me think about it. One day we were talking and he said to me, “Harper, what you have to do is listen. Let the micro-targeting go, we know that you are good at it. Focus on the micro-listening”. Then, for example, we asked the door to door volunteers to speak with people as much as possible, taking note of the subjects they were mainly interested in and addressing them in the following communications. Another listening instrument was a software used by the volunteers to point out the “ups”, the ”trendy” subjects of the moment, and the “challenges”, the hardest goals to achieve. This way the general headquarters were able to have an idea of what was going on in the field, figuring out in real time if there was a problem in one of the States involved and proposing possible

IN THE BEGINNING WAS A T-SHIRT They had invented crowdsourcing, and did not even know. At the time of Threadless, Reed and his colleagues were the first to use the web as source of creative ideas, and it was an immediate success. An alien arrived in Chicago. This is what Reed must have seemed to Obama’s spin-doctors when he joined the team. Regardless of his pirate look, he had navigated with the Threadless’ crew for long, a t-shirt brand known for having invented the crowdsourcing. “The idea is to use web communities as a source of ideas, projects and resources. Today it is very common, but in those days it was very new” he says. “To be honest, at the time we did not know what we were doing. Those from MIT invented the term: during a university meeting, in 2004, out of nowhere, they presented us to the public as the “inventors of the crowd sourcing”. We had no idea! We had not even heard the word before. All we knew was that we were making awfully beautiful t-shirts”. In fact, the system was simple. Four main steps: “First: engage, i.e. bringing users to share their own ideas. Second: submission, inviting them to load their ideas on the site, being part of the community. Third: scoring, the rest of the community judged and voted the best designs that then were printed on t-shirts. Last but not least, the selling and payment of contributors”. People loved t-shirts because they were made and chosen by others like them. What made this whole experience a success was the fact that the creative part was made by the community itself. “They did the hard work! Our job was to facilitate interactions and engagement”. This is a winning model that has not only made Threadless a great success, but also an engagement model that has proved to be useful in the most bewildering situations, including the one of a presidential election.

solutions. In short, the listening allowed us to build up a feedback loop system that, in many cases, made the difference. Facilitating communities

All these tools helped, but the real key was something else: facilitating communities. Communities are a great component of the brand, and if well managed, they may reinforce power and assure success. They represent a strategic and fundamental asset, that is sometimes underrated. Communities, instead, should be facilitated. How? Here are “my” rules. First: focus on authenticity, as value to be instilled in the community to empathize with your consumer. With Threadless, for example, we hired one of our clients to have true reactions from the typical consumer’s point of view. Second: raise awareness on the inner reason beyond our behavior. For Obama, it meant to explain in an effective way why he should be supported. We did it showing and celebrating achieved victories, as the launching of the health care reform. The “empowerment” of users was very important as well, thanks to fine tuning procedures and instruments that allowed them to actively participate, making them feel part of the organization, as we had done at Theardless asking the public to cri-

Communities are a great component of the brand, and if well managed, they may reinforce power and assure success. They represent a strategic and fundamental asset, that is sometimes underrated

tique proposed designs. Finally, the most important aspect, widely neglected: safety. A safe community is a community without “trolls”, i.e. disruptors. John Gabriel (Mike Krahulik’s alter ego and web comic designer of “Penny Arcade”, Ed.) has found a logarithm to define them: normal person + anonymity + audience= terrible person. It means that each individual that can count on an audience and can hide his own identity may become a troll. What can we do to avoid it? There is only one way: trust. If well-constructed, the community itself understands if among new users there is something not right; just as it happens when a new neighbor arrives. Facilitating communities means to create a good neighborhood, a place where people are happy to move to, an environment

In 2008, Obama was a candidate as any other, almost unknown; a sort of â&#x20AC;&#x153;rebel of politicsâ&#x20AC;?, and his campaign was instinctive and light. In 2012, the rebels had become an enterprise

“One of the coolest guys ever” “I love to use the greatness of the web to bring people together, whether it is for Obama, for Threadless or for my personal projects”. Thirtyfour y.o., dark hipster glasses, a fashion piercing and a red forelock in clear evidence. He has an obvious preference for t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, and a professed passion for reading, born and grown during the boring afternoons of his childhood in Colorado. Harper Reed, the King of Big Data, presents himself like this: “probably one of the coolest guys ever”. And his look, carefully curated, strengthens the belief that data professionals are the real rock stars of the new millennium. Based on this and on his overflowing “ego”, he just seems to be the type of guy that could overturn an empire. As a campaign CTO for Obama’s reelection, Reed imagined, organized and directed the biggest operation of data mining in history with the only purpose to make Obama reelected to the White House, revolutionizing electoral strategies. Mission accomplished. Thanks to a magnificent team of nerds – one hundred “digital wizards”, accurately chosen and scouted from the main digital companies and social universe – with just one thing in common: no particular interest in politics, but with a computer knowledge close to the one of the entire Silicon Valley. No less important, Reed is a lifelogger. In the last three years, he has been measuring the kilometers done, the number of steps, the calories and the tweets every day. Only a lifelogger could have created a software capable to dig out Obama’s electors, one by one, individuating their likes, habits, preferences and questions. In a year and a half, the powerful machine of the micro targeting, put together by Reed, has gathered an incredible amount of data through sites, social networks, phone calls, and door-to-door visits. He says: “There is no such thing as “the elector”, “the users”, “the citizens”, each voter is different from one another. Only with this knowledge, you may intercept them and perhaps persuade them”. Because, “electors need to be profiled in order to know which door to knock and to find someone that opens, not to be spied on or to be kept under control”. Despite the success of the “Obama for America 2012”, Reed will not make the leap from “tech guru” to political “transformer”, because he is one of those that, once the job is finished, want to go back to their garage to invent a new start-up and design a new software. On the other hand, he had warned us: “I am a hacker, I am a coder”. Alida Manocchio

(S)marketing

Blumm has torn marketing to pieces! And playing with the pieces, it has built something new. A unique theory, with a peculiarity: not having any. Because to reconstruct, sometimes, first you need to deconstruct by Oscar Blumm

Pop values Art is known to mirror the time. It is an incomparable research tool to understand messages through their reinterpretation into visual codes. Therefore, in the age of global communication, we may ask art some questions, to understand where we are going and where we are coming from. For example, what is pop art saying? Since the ‘60s, it has reminded us that the relationship between the manufacturer and consumer has no secrets and that marketing is a life’s rule from which you may not escape. With ironic provocations and bright colors, it is still telling us a story, better than any treaty, about the commercial logic that has allowed the advertising’s know-how to become a law, and its message a language model. Nevertheless, if I observe the same age as a European and as an Italian, I see something else: the arte povera (poor art), a completely different paradigm, albeit contemporary. A trend born between Italy and Germany during the years of consumerism that has been capable of anticipating important social considerations, as the ones regarding the environmental culture. These are two opposite interpretations of reality, where the intellectual division resides upon considering on one side the consumer and on the other side the citizen. A natural ontological difference, if you keep in mind the peculiar European anatomy, made of different cultures pervaded by different sensibilities, where each of them requires an adequate expression and a range of precise values. These are the preconditions to start making the cultural leap also in communication towards a new avant-garde. Today Europe has a great opportunity: to face and, hopefully, to win the challenge of defining new communication instruments, outside of a commercial approach and towards a model molded upon its own specific values. There is a need to focus on the idea that there is a relationship between institutions and citizens stronger than

the one between producers and consumers. Stop analyzing the advertising and start investigating citizens, consumers of values and services, because it is in this relationship that a different way of thinking and communicating hides. Overturning this point of view is not easy: the product has always been the protagonist and little or nothing has been written on how to engage citizens in a positive relationship. The gap of the quantity and quality of information between the literature about advertising and the one about institutional communication is real. Europe is the ideal place to fulfill this gap thanks to ever-changing cultural variations of the way citizens and institutions relate to each other. While advertising has always studied its targets, elaborating methods increasingly more incisive to reach them, institutional communication must learn to really know its target, its environmental background and its values, leaving behind its antique patronizing tendency, if it wants to fulfill its moral duty of truth and information. This is the next true “pop revolution” and its main carrier is transparency, which becomes a tangible and objective concept, useful to create a trustworthy relationship between the parties. Institutional communication must be transparent, informative, high-sensitive and obviously appealing. In order to engage citizens in this new debate, communication must be thought in a wider sense, not as a single message, more or less memorable, but as a system that connects and informs people. In other words, if we want to get “engagement”, we must know how to tell a story and to create interest, how to use the social innovation tools, in order to share the story and to learn how to relate with changing institutions and public administrations. To test a language that we still do not speak well and that we need to work with, we may look at art and borrow its concepts, transforming it into an instrument. While perpetuating this exchange, a new avant-garde may be created and it will be

24 September – 9:45 a.m. Bibliothèque Solvay, Brussels

EUROPE 2014

The new

European

EUROPE 20

HeritagePOMILIO communication: BLUMM pushing

POMILIO BLUMM

Main speaker

The most prominent and “social” african-american film director

Creator of the cult television series House of Cards

SPIKE LEE

With two Academy Award nominations, a Lifetime Achievement Honor at the César Awards and a “star” in the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, he is now the most famous African-American director.

MICHAEL DOBBS He is the creator of the hit series House of Cards, on istitutions and politics, taken from his trilogy of political thrillers. Prominent figure of the English political panorama, former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, he is now a member of the House of Lords.

Chairman

Moderator

Pomilio Blumm

Al Jazeera

Franco Pomilio

Barbara Serra

President of Pomilio Blumm and Coordinator of EuroMediterraNetwork. he has developed one of the most original theoretical models of communication between institutions and citizen-consumer.

Television reporter, she has been the first non-native speaker to anchor a newscast in the UK, she has worked for BBC, Sky News and Five News. An expert in intercultural dialogue in Europe and the Middle East.

Promoter

Preview of the exhibition “Raccontare la bellezza” with the images of maestro Mimmo Jodice

“Rinascimento”?

the EU culture towards a new leadership mainstream

The Riace Bronzes in Brussels The sublime harmony of the Riace Bronzes and the timeless photos of maestro Mimmo Jodice come together in the heart of modern Europe for an exceptional artistic and cultural project: the photo exhibition “Raccontare la bellezza” preview to be held in Brussels on the occasion of the ICS Pomilio Blumm Summit,

ICS Europe 2014 How can the millenary heritage of the “Old Europe” - meant as artistic as well as historic, civic and religious legacy - become the mainspring of an economic and social rebirth? How can Institutions make use of such an incredible resource to strengthen citizens’ trust and their sense of belonging to the community, helping the formation of a shared civic conscience and a growing “European sensibility”? Can the bond between cultural memory and identity help define a European “lifestyle”, able to enrich our future according to new welfare parameters? These are some of the questions in evidence in the 2014 edition of the Summit, in light of the growing interest of Institutions and individuals in the field of cultural heritage, which is becoming more and more strategic from an economic, political and cultural point of view.

Contatct Tel. +39 085 421.20.32 Fax +39 085 421.20.92

info@internationalcommunicationsummit.com press@internationalcommunicationsummit.com

www.internationalcommunicationsummit.com @icspb

As flowers in honey by Jung Chang*

Storytelling, a tool to communicate civil art. Language, an instrument of transparency, at the service of the values of freedom, identity and citizenship. The bestseller writer Jung Chang reveals the secrets of a successful story, which engages the individual in a greater, collective story. With sincerity, simplicity and a genuine willing to share *A transcript of the speech given during the first edition of the International Communication Summit Europe, held in Brussels on September 26th, 2013

A GRET LEAP FORWARD The new Chinese generations are the first to experience a partial opening to the world, after the long repression of former regimes

THE RED EMPEROR The picture of Mao Zedong made by Andy Warhol in 1972, on the occasion of the resumption of diplomatic relations between China and the USA, in the typical provoking style of the artist

I was born and raised in China in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In those years, China used to be the heart of darkness. The concept of transparency did not even exist: the entire country was completely sealed off and there were no foreigners, because they had all gone away. Growing up, in my mind, as in the one of everyone else, the West was a terrifying place and all westerners were horrible people. In 1966, Mao had begun his Cultural Revolution: books were burned and schools were closed down. In 1968, the day of my sixteenth birthday, I wrote my first poem. Then in 1976, Mao died and things began changing. For the first time in 1978, scholarships, for going overseas, were

given upon academic merit: I was one of the fourteen people of the first group allowed to leave China and to study in the West. I was the first person to go out from the Sichuan province (a region of 90 million people!) and the first one from the communist China to obtain a Doctorate in Languages from the University of York in England. Gradually, China was opening up to the world, so in 1988 my mother came to stay with me. Being for the first time outside her borders (not only geographic but also political and social), she began to open up, and to allow herself to be transparent. She told me her story, and the one of my grandmother and my father. She could not stop: in the six months that my mother stayed in London, she spoke to me every day and left me over 60 hours of recordings. Listening to them, I realized that I had never known anything about

her or about my family: in China, everything was opaque and dark, unsaid. Nothing was known, and no questions were asked. In order not to get questions, nobody dared to tell stories. By listening to my mother, however, I realized that I had to write the story of my grandmother, hers and mine. This is how “Wild swans” was born, a story where our personal life paths reflect China’s history of the twentieth century

A tribute to simplicity “Wild Swans” was a tremendous success. People often ask me what is the secret behind

In China, we have a way of saying that I love: complexity in an artwork should be like salt in water and flowers in honey. They disappear, but their flavour remains everywhere

this success and if I had expected my book to sell tens of millions copies in almost 40 languages. I believe that there are a few important ingredients. The first, very important, is the transparency of the contents. You must be completely honest and straightforward about what counts, and always be clear with the readers, because they judge if a story is true or if you have tried to hide something. I am convinced that, for example, readers have perceived the fact that when talking about my family, in a way, I was partial. If I was, it was just because I wanted to be sincere, letting all the love I feel for them shine through. I love my father. When he was young, he had

been a communist; afterwards he stood against Mao and his Cultural Revolution. Because of this, he was tortured, jailed and sent to labour camp. He died when he was just 54 y.o. I love my mother. While I was in China, I thought hers was a happy marriage. Only afterwards, from her stories, I learned about her bitterness towards my father: a person with whom it was not easy to live, because he placed his principles before his family’s interests. Nonetheless, she never stopped defending him. With this background, I wrote “Wild Swans”. Today, after twenty years, I believe that the foreign public has loved my story because of its being true, regarding my family and the times. Another essential ingredient is the transparency of the language. As narrators, we cannot allow the language to get in the middle of the things we want to communicate. I have always wanted to be a writer. At the beginning, I thought

I was born and raised in China in the ‘50 and ‘60. In those years, China used to be the heart of darkness. The concept of transparency did not even exist: the entire country was completely sealed off

that, in order to tell my story, I needed to use refined ways, fancy phrases and articulated constructions; but at the end, when looking back again at the draft, I found myself duly cutting unnecessary adjectives and descriptions. This is how I understood that the simpler you say things, the more efficient the communication will be. People often believe that complexity is a sign of deepness: on the contrary, simplicity is the true test of profoundness. Musicians and music lovers know that Mozart is the hardest to play because of its sublime simplicity. On this subject, there is a Chinese way of saying I love: complexity in an artwork should be like salt in water and flowers in honey. They disappear but their flavour remains everywhere. While writing my novel, this was my motto. Hard concepts must be communicated without heavy interventions and linguistic manipulations. In “Wild Swans”, I told a private story, but in my

JUNG CHANG Chinese writer and bestseller author. Among her works: the biography “Mao. The unknown story” and the autobiographic novel, “Wild Swans”, currently the most read book on China

mind, for all the time, there was, like a shadow, China’s and Mao’s history. I was aware of it, and could perceive the deep relation between the wider contexts and more personal and intimate aspects. I believe that to be a storyteller, not just a simple writer, this type of awareness is very important, because it allows the story to address a universal audience. We are all human beings and a simple personal story, if told with sincerity, may touch the minds and the hearts of people from every culture. Another important aspect about storytelling is the ability to give readers always a sort of mental image that helps them visualize the most abstract thoughts. In “Wild Swans”, for example, some of these images are related to my grandmother, who also died during the Cultural Revolution. When she was two years old, she underwent the Chinese “golden lotus” traditional practice. Her feet were bandaged so tight that they would have remained minuscule even after becoming an adult, giving her excruciating pains for all her life. I am convinced that the crudeness of this image remains in the mind of readers more than any general speech about oppression. From Mobuto to Imelda Marcos

The deep knowledge of the subject you are talking about is inescapable then, to communicate efficiently. In “Wild Swans”, the story of my family was still fresh in my mind. However, for my following book, Mao’s biography, together with my husband, we had to do extensive researches. We travelled all over the world, consulted tens of archives, and interviewed leaders and people that had been linked to him: from Henry Kissinger to George Bush senior to Palmiro Togliatti and others. It was a great strain, but in some cases also a great fun. Once, for example, in the mid ‘90s, by coincidence my husband and I were in Hong Kong at the same hotel with Mobutu, ex Zaire’s dictator, that had the reputation of strangling his opponents at the table during dinner. I was exhausted and did not want to do anything to meet him, but we crossed each other’s way by pure case in the hallway: I stood in front of him and asked him for an interview, and when he finally agreed, he made me many revelations about the unique relationship between him and the other dictator, Mao. It was also funny to interview the ex-first Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, famous for her thousands of pairs of shoes, but also for having had a flirt with Mao, who seems to have been a discrete

womanizer… During the interview, she furiously winked at my husband Jon and said, “Western men simply do not understand Eastern women”, and so he asked her, “Have you ever found a Western man that understands you?” And she answered: “Just one: Richard Nixon”. Our research kept us busy for twelve fascinating years, during which we were able to compose the story of Mao’s life with so many details, to make his figure and his role much more transparent to today’s Chinese eyes. Moreover, in current times, the debate about him has become more intense than ever: even if the regime continues to perpetrate his myth and his portrait still dominates Tiananmen Square, people are much more informed and I like to think that we have contributed with our book. Let’s take for example the famine that hit China between 1958 and 1961. It was the biggest in history and about 40 million people died. Everyone knows the facts, and I spoke about them in my book. However, for years there was a question in my mind: where did all the food go? Well, thanks to our researches we found out that Mao, even knowing that his people needed to survive, exported food to Russia and East Europe in exchange for new technologies and equipment, just as North Korea is doing today.

Darkness is still strong. In China my books are still banned, but I am proud to affirm that dedicating myself to transparency has always been, and still is, the soul and inspiration of my writing

Therefore, in order to accomplish his mad ambition – the one of dominating the World by making China a superpower – Mao deliberately starved his people to death. I believe that transparency for a writer means also enabling people to make comparisons and intelligent questions. I am happy that with our book we were able to bring some of this light into the heart of darkness. However, darkness is still strong: the proof is that in China my books are still banned. Of course, there is the web, but I myself have experienced censorship cancelling and closing blogs that spoke about and released digital copies of my book. In short, the battle is

THE IRON BUTTERFLY Imelda Marcos, the ex-first Lady of Philippines, was one of Mao’s lovers. Jung Chang has interviewed her regarding the biography dedicated to the dictator’s secret side

Art to the test Last September, the Italian Embassy of Brussels hosted the Blumm Prize, with an honorary patroness, Jung Chang, the Chinese best-selling author, and the ambassador Alfredo Bastinelli. It is an international award for independent artists under 40 that focuses on the theme of transparency between Institutions and citizens, promoted by the Pomilio Blumm Agency. The prize is linked to ICS Europe that takes place every year in Brussels. Sculptures, videos and installations are the expressive forms that the competing twenty artists from all around the world chose for representing the delicate subject of the prize. The winner, the artist Maria Elisabetta Novello with her work “Vasi comunicanti” (Communicating Vessels), was awarded for her capability to recall “the never ending cycle of decadence and regeneration pervading human actions, giving a new ethical sense to life” (as justified by the Scientific Board); the winner of the online contest was Michele Spanghero from Gorizia with his work “Ad lib”. Identity, citizenship and public emotion in the current transnational and intercultural setting are the themes of the U40 Blumm Prize Literature, promoted in collaboration with Rubbettino Editore. Jung Chang, patroness of this prize, illustrates the concept: “Transparency is a fundamental: it guides the storytelling of reality, to reach the roots of facts and to tell the truth”. In particular, the effort asked to young under-40 talents is to interpret how the relationship between citizens and institutions changes in a world without boundaries, more and more interconnected thanks to new digital technologies.

Maria Elisabetta Novello Graduated in painting in 1998 at Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, she won the Blumm prize with the artistic work “Vasi comunicanti” (Communicating vessels)

Sharing the Future by Geoff Mulgan

Abandoning the logics of the twentieth century and cruising towards a new direction: more cooperative and relational. In a constantly changing world, innovation changes its rules too: it starts from the bottom, offering Europe its occasion to fight austerity and shape its own future *A transcription of the speech given during the first edition of the International Communication Summit Europe, held in Brussels on September 26th, 2013

BACK TO THE FUTURE The innovation mechanism usually follows unpredictable ways. The current 3D, for example, renews a technology of the 50’s

Two hundred years ago, Otto Von Bismarck, great legislator and statesman, said: “The least men know about how their laws or their sausages are made, the better”. This is a striking aphorism of the politics of the past. However, today, we want to know. Those working in Google know it well. Just some weeks ago, they launched a new and fascinating project that aims to make available the constitutions of each country of the world online, so that, through the queries, all the laws about a certain topic may be searched. And it is not just that we want to be aware, we want to be involved in the realization of our laws too. However, this does not translate in transparency. The 2010 Copenhagen Summit

LAWS AND SAUSAGES “It is better that people don’t know how their laws and their sausages are made”, Otto Bismarck used to say. On the right, Jan Andraka, the 15 yearold inventor of a new innovative cancer test

has confirmed the failure of leaders reunited in managing challenges for climate change. The event was epochal for various reasons, in particular because of the passage of power from the West to the East: the Chinese and the Indian delegates explained attending Presidents and First Ministers why their plans would not have worked. This tells us a lot about transparency. Therefore I agree with Ronny Patz, of Transparency International, when he states that the more leaders of governments are transparent, the more people think that they are not competent at performing their duties. I spent a great part of my life inside big Institutional Buildings, from the United Kingdom to the White House, to the Kremlin and to Beijing and I understood that in certain places ”to lift the lid” does not suffice, does not fix things. We are witnessing a slow, painful and inconstant attempt to change the ways in which we are

This is what innovative teams do: find alternatives, new solutions to be rapidly implemented, testing them in the real world. And this ideas grow only if they effectively work

governing. When working for Tony Blair, my team had two fundamental duties: to monitor the results in order to align the objectives of the government to the way the financial system, the laws and the structures were organized as much as possible, to make things really work, and at the same time, to earn trust, a goal that used to depend a lot on the governing ways and on the relations with the public. Tony Blair was very good at this; he was able to earn the trust of voters demonstrating with numbers what he had promised during the electoral campaign. So, if you are able to maintain your promises, maybe people will trust you more. I say maybe, because this is not good enough: you also have to explain people what you are doing, telling them about the progresses and listen to them, especially when things are not going well. You must always offer your diagnosis before prescription. Above all, it is important to talk to people about “future”,

to make it as more transparent and open as possible. To have a vision and to comprehend the world: that too makes you worthy of trust. Despite all of it, with financial records, deficit and problem solving being so compelling, today this “future” seems to be missing in almost all of our policies. An answer to change

Up to five years ago, it was thought that social innovation regarded small volunteer activities in communities. Instead, the phenomenon has spread widely and on a massive scale

To “change” has become necessary. In the 20th century innovation was limited to big research centres, where experts created solutions, then spread around the world. Today another type of innovation, which involves users and

regards mainly services, is being established. An innovation addressed towards a much wider collective intelligence. Last year, the winner of the Intel Science Prize was Jack Andraka, a fifteen year-old boy: without a degree or a PhD, he invented a test for pancreatic cancer much more efficient and economic than the one come out from big labs. This boy, “trained” by Internet, selftaught and without any sponsorship from big companies, demonstrates that innovation may pass through channels different from traditional ones and far from famous expertise centres. In my organization (NESTA, Ed.), we coordinate a European network that awards companies able to generate business with new technologies and introduce faster solutions into the market, without waiting for big players, like Philips or IBM. One of the most interesting projects we followed is “Make things, do stuff”. My advice: if

you have children, it doesn’t matter how old they are, check out the website, there are tools to learn how to code, make web sites or animation. The spirit of this project (that now has become a global movement) is to prevent next generation from becoming a passive user of Facebook, Google or Skype, but a “digital maker”. In the 20th century, in the United Kingdom, France, United States, India or China, about half of the budget allocated for research and development was used to support the military, while we were facing poverty, drugs, crime, chronic conditions such as obesity and population aging without having adequate instruments to deal with them. Luckily, today we are witnessing a movement heading for new fields of innovation, mainly oriented towards public services and social needs. Around the world, there are already many active funds for social innovation (in Australia,

LISTENING POLITICS This giant ear is in front of Seoul’s City Hall. It is the symbol of Won Soon Park’s administration: a “permanent conversation” with citizens, which may make proposals and participate in public life

IMAGINE TOMORROW A moment of the last Future Fest, an event dedicated to innovation organized by NESTA

France and the United Kingdom and soon in Hong Kong), specific offices, as the one of the White House, and some awards as well, such as in Europe and China for example. There are even new types of financial tools, such as social impact bonds, which are spreading more and more, aimed at using financial funds for social objectives. The G8 discussed a lot about them, but developing countries are the only ones really going ahead in this field. Some time ago, for example, I was with a man that implemented an educational project in the schools of Pratham, India, dedicated to slumsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; children. To support the project, there is a structure behind that brings together 20 million people. Think about it: 20 million! In Europe, there is not anything like that or that can get even closer. Then, there are some cases, such as the Havas, millions of people there too, and the BRAC organization in Bangladesh, employing more than 100 thousand people. The point is that up to five years ago, it was thought that social innovation regarded small volunteer activities in the communities. Instead, the phenomenon has spread widely and on a massive scale. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take the couch surfing, which has more beds than all the hotels of the world, and keeps on growing. What does it

entail? I will try to answer with some examples. At the end of September in London, we organized an event with the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, who had 20 billion dollars and wanted to find a way to spend them shortly. My organization will help the Major to finance the most innovative and creative ideas presented by other Majors that govern cities with more than one hundred thousand people. This is what innovative teams do: find alternatives, new solutions to be rapidly implemented, testing them in the real world. And these ideas grow only if they effectively work, if they have a real profit, as taught by the experience of MindLab in Denmark that uses ethnographic methods. This is about small ideas based on technology, some are mostly scientific, developed by a team that tests them and does spot checks. In Boston, for example, they are experimenting an app that will allow administrations to be warned if there is a bump in the road so that someone may rapidly fix it. Innovation: between business and solidarity Internet becomes a platform to mobilize people and skills: that is what a sharing economy is. Think about the crowd funding, which is more

and more getting a foothold every day. It is a cooperative field for consumption that mobilizes money. For example, we must encourage people to share machinery and cars in order to reduce wastage. Do you know for how many minutes do we use a drill in a life? Eleven, on average. Then I can lend it to someone else and take advantage of this exchange, and so forth. There are activities that may favour GDP reduction but may also improve life standards. A library in London has asked people to insert their own book collections into their database. By logging into its website, you may discover that your neighbour has the book you want to borrow. Therefore, you can visit him, take the book and the library database will register it. Suddenly, public resources are expanding and interactions within the community increase. It is a different way of thinking; satisfy the needs of citizens and manage a public service. In China, we have implemented some solutions to cope with people’s isolation: a chronic, epidemic isolation that is spreading over big cities such as Shanghai and Beijing and often due to long distances. By taking advantage of social media, we have created a support group around the elderly that includes doctors, social workers, friends

and relatives as well. Each one carries out a task: bring a meal, drive to the hospital, and so on. This way all the resources from the community (not only the ones financed by the health care system) are mobilized and, at the same time, relationships are strengthened and people get closer. This type of “relational” economy may be applied to culture and art as well. In the project “Culture cloud”, that involved around 40 thousand people, the public could vote artistic performances online. In Nottingham, another project allows people to express artistic judgements, stimulating conversations. Some others concern writing: by means of a smart phone, you may select the passages of a book and discover mentioned places, or create links to texts, videos, audio files and so forth. It is a completely innovative way to bring literature back to life. In view of next year’s anniversary of the First World War, we want to make a project about memories by using crowdsourcing: we want to create a museum, halfway between physical and virtual, with pictures, memories and stories of common people. Europe should take advantage of this huge potential to free economy from austerity and

GEOFF MULGAN Expert of social innovation and sharing economy, CEO of NESTA Association, former Head of Policy of Tony Blair’s government

to build the future, thanks to research and development. Many countries, especially from the East, have made a change from the technical policy to the engagement: Taiwan, Finland, South Korea, and Israel are examples of successful economies, because they invest more in future technologies. And it is important for Europe to start doing it right now, in this difficult moment of instability. America made its biggest public investments in technology during the cold war era. Innovation cannot be something created inside the labs of big companies, but something to which everyone can contribute.

We are living incredible times. Our duty is to observe and invent new ways to progress together, as citizens and innovators of a project of sharing and growth where we are all really and deeply equal

A permanent conversation

A WAY OUT On top, a street art stencil in New York. The symbol of Monopoly “get out of jail free card” ironically evokes the revolutionary potentials of the sharing economy

It is clear that transparency alone is not enough to generate trust, it should be integrated to innovation and social participation. In Finland, citizens may propose arguments to the Parliament, and be included in decision making processes, making them feel always part of it, not just every four or five years during election time. Let me conclude with an example that comes from Korea. The current Seoul Mayor (Won Soon Park, Ed.) is trying to reinvent the government of the city, which today has over 11 million people. The symbol of this new approach is a giant ear installed in front of the City Hall: inside of it, each citizen may present his proposals, make comments that then will be included in a list, which is available online. What the Mayor is trying to do is to transform the government of the city into a “permanent conversation”. He is not very

much loved by traditional media. He won the elections thanks to a campaign over social media and today has over one million followers on Twitter. Today Seoul is reinventing a new welfare with its inhabitants: for example, it is a leader in car-sharing. This giant ear then has become exactly the opposite of what Bismarck used to say: not only you need to know how laws and sausages are made, but also you need to have the possibility to be engaged in a permanent conversation. In other words, we must distance ourselves from the 20th century’s model, when everything was done for people, and turn towards a society and an economy where everything is made with people: to govern with people, realize services and products with people, design, develop and innovate with people. We are living incredible times. Our duty is to observe and invent new ways to progress to-

Business report by Vincenzo Boccia

Small is (still) beautiful? The Italian productive environment is peculiar, composed of small industries that today are called to face a new economic model. To know how to transform a necessity into a virtue seems to be the challenge of the new Italian system. Considering our performance in exports and our innovative capabilities, it’s an achievable task. The crisis that began in September 15th, 2008, the date of the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers, “is not a cyclical crossing but a structural metamorphosis.” This definition is by Aldo Bonomi, sociologist and founder of the Consortium Aaster, that has devoted a large part of his scientific thinking to the economic and anthropological dynamics of the development of the territories. From a general point of view this metamorphosis coincides with the end of the “small is beautiful” and the port to another economic model, whose many aspects are still to be built, which sees rewarded above all innovative enterprises very projected on international markets. Faced with this challenge, our production system is far from being unprepared. Italian entrepreneurs, in fact, have always had a vocation to export and, as for competitiveness in trade, in 2011 - under the Trade Performance Index developed by UNCTADWTO results - we have been second only to Germany. The Manifesto launched recently by Symbola Unioncamere and Edison Foundation – “Beyond the Crisis. Italy has to do Italy” – wanted to remember this fact, as well as pointing out of the 14 sectors in which the business world is divided, Italy won the second position in three of them (including the mechanical, non-electronic) and is in first place in the other three (textiles, clothing and leather products). As for innovation, we could say that this aspect - in the more traditional forms of process and product innovation - has always characterized the activities of Italian companies. Maybe it has not found every time a corresponding formalization of the progress that has been made, for instance the limited use of patents, but it has certainly represented a great lever of survival, especially for smaller companies. And the future of our industrial system depends precisely on the direction that small and mediumsized enterprises will be able to take in the face of new scenarios. It is a well known fact that they represent the vast majority of active enterprises in industry and services in the market and is also known

that even before the crisis they were measured mainly with the domestic market. On this front, despite some recovery estimated by the Centro Studi Confindustria on the total domestic demand for 2014, we are still down over 12 percentage points compared to 2007. On the contrary it remains good prospects for increased exports. As it emerges from the last “Quick Survey on industrial production”, in respect of the orders received by industrial enterprises, the PMI index (i.e. the one obtained from surveys conducted on the purchasing managers and usually interpreted as a gauge of the health status of ‘economy,) referred to foreign orders has exceeded the natural threshold of 50, reaching 55.5 points. So the export is promising well and it is deduced that in the new economic model that is looming, the small size is not impediment in itself, but it becomes a condition to be overcome to the extent that inhibits the catching, precisely, of those opportunities that especially foreign markets reserve today. Since the growth is a result that can not be won in one day, small and medium-sized enterprises are called to experience immediately forms of aggregation (for example enterprise networks) or simple collaboration that could qualify even more their offer in the eyes of foreign customers. An offer that today does not end in the product, but it measure itself more and more also in the amount of service that the firm or group of firms is able to make. At the same time, in the enterprise also the financial aspects must be treated with equal care, working to strengthen the capital and, pending that the credit crunch is loose, studying and going to alternative forms of financing such as private equity or debt securities. A final aspect, finally, often overlooked, is the one of the communication, today an indispensable tool not only to consolidate its market, but also to open up new opportunities. Also in this field there is a lot of work: gone are the days of “I take a nice catalog” and also those who work on the business-to-business must be able to tell not only the product, but first of all an identity. Sometimes, giving even a hint of emotion.

Vincenzo Boccia CEO of Arti Grafiche Boccia Spa, honorary president of Assafrica & Mediterraneo, currently President of the Piccola Industria and Vice President of the Italian Industrial Union

The imperative of immediacy by Pierre ZĂŠmor*

New media: an instrument at the marketsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; behest or a way to facilitate democracy? To answer this question letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take a closer look to the camaleonich nature of communication, from its inception to date, in order to rediscover its crucial value to society and the magnitude of the challenge it is expected to tackle

*A transcription of the speech given during the first edition of the International Communication Summit Europe, held in Brussels on September 26th, 2013

THAT’S THE PRESS, BABY Humphrey Bogart in the famous final scene of “Deadline – USA”, which was long considered a symbol of the power of the press and of its role of “watchdog” of the Institutions

Pierre Zémor State Counsellor of France, and prominent figure in the European Public Communication, Zémor has presided over the European Associations EuroPcom and FEACP

Since the origins of the human race, communication has kept people together, allowing them to interact and socialize. In addition to connecting people, communication has set the very basis of society: the birth of politics and the first social organizations managed in a collective way, from the first cities to the modern societies would not have been possible without sharing and exchange of information. Associating communications and politics is, thus, a pleonasm. The instruments and the essential arts for communicating, such as writing, graphics, signs and symbols, were exclusive property of those in power for a long time. This status quo has marked many historical ages in various continents: the communicative abilities of Egyptian scribes Asian calligraphers, priests of every creed, were at the service of the ruling classes. From being a prerogative of the few, during the last decades, communication has become a resource originating from and addressing many people. The technological progress in information transfer, the birth and evolution of media and journalism, reaching digitalization of data on the entire planet, have widened knowledge and multiplied the ways and the channels we use to express ourselves, making them accessible to all (at the risk of banal use). Today, communication has asserted itself as a discipline and a professional field on its own, remaining independent, distinct from other fields of knowledge and human activities: it has formalized its own theoretical system, refined analytic and operational tools that claim their use in every sector of society. In the consumer society, communication as a science has imposed its own effectiveness by supporting correct channelling of information, by contributing to the optimal formulation of messages, also visual ones, and by analysing opinions. The large access to information and the possibilities to measure citizens’ expectations, using surveys, polls and improved marketing forms, have, initially, made democracies’ lives easier: the citizens themselves have found new freedom of expression that today develops over Internet and social networks. Dangerous drifts Communication, though, has exploited its own assets by sometime taking grotesque tones, becoming a promoter of an advertising nature, an instrument to endorse the emotional appeal of images. If, one hand, this phenomenon has met the needs of commercial communication in the competitive fields of retail, on the other hand, in the world of information, it has favoured the adoption of criteria oriented to-

The transparency efforts of institutions still struggles to be recognized. Communication, even the one geared towards the collective interest, tends to be generalized and reduced to garbage

wards the spectacular spectacularization. The denial of complexity has conquered media professionals and the best intellectual thinkers. The hypocrisy of journalism, which claims the pureness of information, has helpedwiden the gap between manipulated communication and the cone aiming to be authentic. Instead, institutions are embracing this second type of communication by making public data available to users, interacting with them and making procedures transparent. Nevertheless, even after being accompanied for a quarter of a century by the Association Communication Publique, FEACP (European Federation of Public Communication Associations) and EuroPcom (European Public Communication Conference), the institutions’ efforts still struggle to be fully recognized. Their communication, even the one geared towards collective interest, tends to be generalized and reduced to rubbish. The situation is much more alarming in the political communication sphere, where it is often linked to a hasty marketing, justified in the short-term quality of election campaigns, yet utterly unfit to facilitate the comprehension of governmental politics in the midterm and to serenely accompany the exercise of authority. In this field, moreover, the increasing dominance of professional figures, such as the spin doctors, interferes with power management and public perception of political reality. In the name of their own specialized professionalism in the area of communications, these modern gurus enter the directional sphere of political communication pursuing biased objectives and interests. This may have very negative consequences upon democracies, particularly in times of crisis and social uncertainty. Looking for an antidote We are witnessing a general crisis of both internal and external communication. On the one hand, the immediacy of media and digital infor-

mation influences decision makers: the pressure of current affairs forces them into a sort a perennial “communication crisis” that compromises their very image and credibility. Furthermore, this “imperative of immediacy” deprives information of its additional professional value, of cross checking and qualifying of data. The public ends up reacting to alleged news before knowing ascertained facts and having had a serious and thorough analysis: all of which fuels a sense of distrust. On the other hand, communication is called upon to face the external challenges of severe

and lasting crises, whether of financial economic, social, ecological and cultural nature. Here is where communication must find new impulses, outside of the dichotomy between soft promotion and directive injunction. Otherwise, the risk is to come up with simplistic slogans, not far from the ones experienced by totalitarian regimes, in order to reassure public opinion in the short term. Communication should, instead, be the antidote to escape from these dangerous drifts, caused by everyday anxiety and fear of the future. A new form of communication is needed, that may contribute to revitalize democracy. The objective is ambitious but reaching it is possible, beginning from the activities of our governments: with the right sense of responsibility, we must develop political communica-

In addition to bonding people, communication has set the bases of society: the first social organizations would have never been born without the exchange of information. Associating communication and politics is, thus, a pleonasm

tion model that tries to understand people, is able to restore relationship with its citizens and steadily earn their trust, breaking out from the dictatorship of the immediate, and enlightening choices. Such kind of political communication does not exist yet. Born in the consumer products sector, marketing methods have misled communication towards the study of citizen’s expectations, instead of towards their involvement in defining the political offer. In addition to making information and points of reference available and establishing a social dialogue while holding power, it is urgent to include participatory practices at all decision-making political levels. Collaboration and public debate may then legitimate and validate the authenticity of representative democracy. Facing a communicative

MEET WALDO A scene of the English mini-series “Black Mirror”, that tells the rise to power of Waldo, a virtual puppet, using sarcastic and paradoxical tones

At the heart of participation by Stephen Clark*

Thanks to the constant commitment in making citizens and deputies dialogue, the European Parliament is contributing to the creation of a new and transnational language. Here we propose firsthand reflection about the civic participation in the era of the web 2.0, among â&#x20AC;&#x153;antiqueâ&#x20AC;? instruments and new technologies *A transcript of the speech given during the first edition of the International Communication Summit Europe, held in Brussels on September 26th, 2013

ACTION AND REACTION A frame of the commercial concerning European electoral campaign, “Act React Impact”, which promotes citizens’ active participation in EU decision-making process

The creation of a more immediate, genuine and direct relationship between Institutions and citizen has been in the agenda of the primary interests of the European Parliament for a long time. Yet, what does exactly speaking to the citizen mean for an Institution? And above all, who is this citizen, what really characterizes him, especially in a European context? These are the questions I have made to myself, as the director for the relations with the citizens and thus as a responsible for a public service, not directly elected by citizens, but still with a political influence. Overtime, I have convinced myself that the best way to give an answer is to describe what we actually do. Inside the Parliament

Stephen Clark Director for Relations with Citizens at European Parliament and coordinator of the Parliament’s communication campaign for the 2014 elections

We perform several activities each day and in order to realize them we need to trigger a multifaceted mix of high and low tech tools. No doubt guided tours inside the Parliament are among the most relevant low tech instruments. Coming from a very internet oriented environment and being considered as “the one from the web” for many years, I thought they were outdated and of low impact. Working in this new role, i realized instead that this is the highest quality of contact that we may have with citizens. Having the possibility to meet their representatives and their staff, exploring and observing where they work and what they do means somehow, becoming citizens’ ambassadors inside the Parliament. At the European Parliament, we welcome about 300.000 visitors every year, thanks to a program inspired to a similar initiative and introduced by the allied occupation authorities during the denazification in Germany. This indicates that a visit on site is an important controlling instrument of democratic institutions and of how they work. A brand new way of guiding citizens along the European integration path, showing its impact on our everyday life is the Parliamentarium Visitors’ Centre: a true attraction, with over 350.000 visitors each year and one of the first five tourist destinations in Brussels; it is a great success for us and a good way to allow people, of all ages, to discover something more about the Institution that represents them, in a funny way. From 2014, at the Leopold Park, close to the European Parliament the House of European History – name chosen by Hans-Gert Pottering, the former President of the European Parliament – shows everyone where we come from as Europeans, and not only as English, French, Germans, Italians and so forth. Moreover, we promote many events and

Our work is more and more oriented towards acting as mediators: to connect deputies and citizens, to start off conversations and then “get out of the way”, leaving the dialogue develop by itself

campaigns such as the Open Days, which have brought 20.000 people to the buildings in Brussels and even more to Strasbourg. In this case as well, we talk about initiatives that may seem old fashioned and that instead create high quality contacts, because they allow people to have a “hands on” approach on the institutions and to see with their own eyes how they work. A mediator’s role In addition to these traditional activities, we have obviously launched many others online. For example, we are extremely proud of the presence of the European Parliament on the web, that has really no contenders, at least if compared to other Parliaments in the world that instead have a very weak and traditional presence. Five years ago, the European Parliament entered the world of social network and shortly our Facebook page will reach one million fans. I do not exactly know what it means, but in any case, we like it! The social media experience has paved the way to a new model of talking to people and a new way to allow them to talk to us, a crucial point in our work. The presence of the European Parliament on the web is very interesting especially for its web site, currently in 23 languages, that gives access to lots of contents, from the works of the committees live (the data are available in 23 languages as well) to laws, acts and other practical information. We thought it was a normal thing, but during a visit in the United States we saw that they are now undertaking a campaign to do what we have been already doing for quite some time, as uploading bills online for example. Most of our work regards transparency and accessibility. We are using all new techniques extensively, such as chats, Facebook and Twitter, which bring together MEPs (Member of Parliament) and citizens. What we do, then, more than talking to people, is to put them in

contact with the MEPs. To do so , we also use the IP Newshub, a live feed about everything deputies publish online on Facebook and Twitter, their web sites and blogs, along with their press releases. On one hand, each member of the Parliament may be included in the IP Newshub and, on the other hand, users may filter contents and choose the language. Our work is increasingly becoming an act of mediation: we connect people with their representatives, to start off the conversation and then “get out of the way”, leaving the dialogue develop by itself. “This time is different”

Most of what we do is experimental, we do not know how and if it works. For example, a new type of MEP is emerging, ready to answer to what we may call the “online constituencies” with the same attention given to the geographic ones. As we come closer to the next European elections of May 2014, a radical change may be observed over what representative democracy really means. In this perspective, the slogan of the new communications campaign “Act, React, Impact” about the European elections is meaningful: “This time is different”. And it is really a new situation, under different points of view, starting from the changes brought by the European Treaties, as the Lisbon one: among them, one of the most important change is the possibility for the Parliament, to elect in a direct way the President of the

Commission, starting from the next elections. European parties will be brought to sponsor their own candidates and for the first time we will witness a personalization of the political campaign at European level. It is not a case if, in an official note, the General Secretary of the European Parliament has officially communicated that the elections campaign must be structured in a way that reflects the context where these elections take place, characterized by the economic downturn and a widespread sense of anger and frustration among citizens. “We must avoid - he says in his note - mushy optimism, “bubble gum” tones, insignificant

and calming slogans, since these are the last things citizens would like to see”. The sense is clear. As for now Europe grumbles, and Europeans are fed up with politics, including the European one, since the Union has been much more present in people’s lives, but in a very unpleasant way. In other words, there is not exactly the right mindset to tell citizens “We are all happy together in Europe. We love Europe”. The next electoral campaign will be much more political: we will have candidates and there will be debates, but the really interesting difference this time will be that they will have to compete on who will take on leader’s role. And in this case too, our role as communicators will be to step aside and to let politicians talk, because, at the end and beyond any instrument that we provide them with, they are the only ones to have the burden – and the honour – to talk and to listen to citizens.

COMMON ROOTS Above, an image of the first edition of ICS Europe, held at the elegant and prestigious Bibliothèque Solvay in Brussels, symbol of the city and of its European vocation

The long way to transparency by Ron Patz*

Between conservative resistance and new media, access to information seems to be the right way to fulfil the gap between citizens and authorities in the European decision-making process. Transparency becomes the EU bargaining chip in the relations between citizens and policy-makers

*A transcription of the speech given during the first edition of the International Communication Summit Europe, held in Brussels on September 26th, 2013

THE DARK FACE OF POWER Kevin Spacey in the role of Frank Underwood, the ruthless and manipulating senator, main character of the series “House of Cards”

Integrity, transparency and responsibility. All this means working against corruption and that is what Transparency does. I began writing about European issues as a blogger when I was not here in Brussels, but in Germany and Moldova. Therefore I have found out European politics world, by approaching the subject of “transparency” online, reading documents, using social networks and studying their evolution. For sure, Stephen Clark was one of the first to explore this dimension and the first “outside mirror” of social media capable of opening the debate, which was already scaring the USA, while Europe at the time was still behind on those matters that would have arisen from it. Working as a blogger, I came to know Transparency International and became aware of how limited my perspective was when I was far from Brussels. So I moved, thinking it was worth fighting for a more transparent and open Europe. Afraid of exposure

RON PATZ EU Communications and Policy Officer at the Liaison Office of Transparency International and co-editor of Bloggingportal.eu

Living in 2013, one may be driven to think that the value of transparency is evolving to a sort of common language, but this is not the case. In fact, during one of our events, different European politicians have declared to perceive a sort of scepticism from the political class itself about the opportunity to adopt this concept as a common practice. A scepticism that inevitably rose up from their well-established habit of working inside closed institutions, which do not communicate with the world outside. The fear of being exposed is rooted in their minds and has found a breeding ground in the image of the European Union that, in the last few years, has changed in citizens’ perception, because of the economic crisis too. In a nutshell, the trust of people towards all institutions, whether they are European or national, is missing. Some relate this distance between citizens and institutions to the economic downturn and to unsuccessful policies, but behind these obvious considerations, there is the hidden role of citizens. They must be asked to express their opinion about the decisions taken by governing bodies. Figures are clear: two thirds of European citizens believe that their own voice does not count in Brussels, while more than two thirds are convinced that inside the Institutions themselves, a corruption system is rooted and can’t be deafeted. In some way, we must intervene and transparency could be the way. A matter of trust

The challenge that today policy makers have to cope with is to change their transparency policies, being aware that we, the citizens, are the ones to ask for it through new technologies

There is an open debate about this topic, but in order to make it work there are many questions to be made in advance. The first is: trust in what and transparency of what? If it is true that the more transparent the decision making process is, the less trust seems to be created around the competency of the policy maker, then it is also true that we, the public, thanks to documents available on social media favouring dialogue, have become aware of how politicians first don’t know everything and make mistakes. A possibility that raises “transparency” to a much more important level, because it seems to influence the citizens’ trust on politicians’ honesty. That’s why I believe that we have reached a point of the political debate where we, the citizens, prefer those leaders saying “I don’t know, but we can solve the problem together”, to those who say “I know what to do, but you are not included in this decision”. But, which is the level of transparency in Europe? Transparency has organized the international day of “write to know”, this year too. It’s aimed to recall policy makers that access to information means transparency, which is a value itself, a human right and a necessary way to involve citizens. The goal: open data In a study we carried out few years ago, we proved how difficult obtaining information from EU Institutions and member States was, as well as being informed on how a law, even if well made, was actually implemented in everyday life. This is why one of the challenges that policy makers have to face today is not just changing their transparency policies, but doing it while being aware that we, the citizens, ask for it through new technologies and media. Indeed, many laws that regulate access to documents were made when the social media or debates on open data had not yet reached policy makers. Therefore one of the battles that Transparency International is fighting is to make institutions understand that technology and new media progress is an opportunity for

them. What every citizen needs is the immediate availability of documents and not only a scanned text published on a web site. The challenge of our times is to gradually make politicians learn how to involve citizens. Towards a legislative footprint Our hope is to reach a point where we, the citizens, may truly trust our rulers. To do so, we must know what they are doing. This is one of the expectations of our battle against

One of the battles that Transparency International is fighting is to make institutions understand that technology and new media progress is an opportunity for them

Living in 2013, one may be driven to think that the value of transparency has already reached all levels, that it is evolving into a sort of common language, but unfortunately this is not the case

corruption. I want to make sure that those deciding on my behalf do it honestly, without being influenced by anyone, and pursue the general interest. One example comes from Brussels, where one of the most heated European issues concerns lobbies and how they hamper the integrity of decision-making. We ask for the introduction of what we call a â&#x20AC;&#x153;Legislative footprintâ&#x20AC;?, a sort of reference that tells us about the origins of the idea policy makers included in a law under discussion, in order to know which public and private groups influenced the debate and trace the process which led to a particular result. In this perspective, there have been some attempts to create an access platform of data which proved that technical feasibility is possible. We must speed this process up because we are ten years out of date. If we are able to reduce this

THE HORIZON OF OPEN DATA Today, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners Lee, is one of the most convinced supporters of the Open Data model

Citizen-consumer by Blumm Academy

A column dedicated to case histories and relevant researches: a tool for professional updating, with information, practical indications and operative suggestions helpful to the everyday working life in the field of institutional communication

The devil of corruption is invisible to the eye

Open our eyes on corruption and arouse dormant consciences, with a new-found awareness and ( why not?) with a smile. This is the purpose of the world campaign “Time to wake up!”. Because the more we talk about it , the simpler recognizing and resisting its damage will be. by Davide Del Monte and Susanna Ferro “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he does not exist”. This memorable line from the movie “the Usual Suspects” summarizes what is maybe the biggest hindrance to a less corrupted society: making people understand that corruption, like the devil, not only exists, but would do anything for not being discovered. It would be naive and wrong to understate the phenomenon as an issue between the corrupted and the corruptor because corruption is much more. It is a way of thinking, acting and living. It is the idea that rules make the road longer or complicated; that self interest excludes the public one; that the law of the strongest (or the sliest, or the richest) is the only one to follow. Thinking that corruption is just an economic felony, a matter of sums and subtractions is equally wrong. The economic damage is just the most recognizable; there is a whole belied iceberg of more serious consequences hidden by our short-sightedness: territories in disarray, poisoned or violated because of the tacit support of the politician on call, patients ruined by a defected valve because cheaper or advised by top clinicians, valuable researchers deprived of a professorship or a career already promised to those with more renowned names. This is the message of the world campaign of Transparency International “TIME TO WAKE UP!”: open your eyes and finally find out that corruption exists and it damages you. It is also an invitation to do something, individually and collectively, starting from the smallest everyday behaviours. The campaign has reached millions of people from each country, such as, for exam-

ple, Korea, Kenya, Mongolia, Hungary, Argentina, and Portugal, just to remember some of. The goal is to involve citizens into creative and funny activities, and, at the same time, create some space for in-depth debate. With the same perspective, TI Italy has launched #WAKEUP! the Italian version of the campaign. Among the initiatives undertaken, there is the photographic contest “Metti a fuoco la corruzione” (Focus on corruption) that invites everyone, and in particular the youngsters, to face corruption and capture its effects. The hope is to give space not only to citizens’ dissatisfaction towards a corrupted system, but also to flip over the distrust feelings towards public affairs. Facing corruption by looking at it in the eyes is just the first step, but in order to defeat it, a smile is needed, like the one of the protagonist of the video “Giovane e un po’ street (Young and a bit street)” by Luca Dosi: normal people, surprised on their way and hit by a healthy bucket of fresh water in the face, an ironic symbol of a highly desirable and needed awakening from social apathy. The objective is to foster a firm and strong reaction, never pessimistic or sad. The spread of the video through social media and on public transportation system of Rome and Milan started on December 9th, the UN International anticorruption day, during which the winners of the photographic competition have been awarded. We must be aware that changing social mindset takes a long time. Two headlights in the night do not brighten up the whole street, but if we are able to turn on many others, we could clearly see what is in front of us. On the other hand, turning the lights off will make us get lost.

Davide Del Monte Project officer of Transparency International Italy and coordinator of the NIS Italy project

Susanna Ferro Advocacy and communication manager for Transparency International Italy

Welcome (back) to the future by Francesco Mazzucchelli*

Among prophecies and conspiracies, the future of the digital revolution as seen in the video “Gaia”, by the promoter of Italian movement M5S, irredeemably reflects some traits of its political view. Using apocalyptic tones and cathartic ambitions, the dearest theme to the M5S – the “change” – emerges. Towards which “new”? * A synthesis of the speech given by the author during the “Public Opinion: new spokesmen?” Convention on 11-13 September 2013, at the International Center of Semiotics and Languages in Urbino

POWER VISIONS Director Leni Riefenstahl” who made one of the strongest visual celebrations of the Nazi regime with her film “Olympia”

Planet earth, XXI century. The world is divided into two blocks: on one side the web is still free, on the other it is under the state’s control. This new world antagonism unfolds in a series of armed conflicts that lead to a devastating bacteriological war. The world population is reduced to a billion people and from the ruins of this conflict, in 2054, a New World Order arises. The collective intelligence created by the web has meanwhile been reorganized under the name of EarthLink, a mysterious totalitarian institution born from the evolution of Google, will finally be free to express itself and make collective decisions in order to manage public matters.

FROM DECLARATIONS TO PROPAGANDA Savonarola, inventor of the open letters, and Mussolini addressing the crowds: two military “milestones” in the history of political communication according to Casaleggio’s video

This is not the plot of a political science fiction film, but the final synthesis of “Gaia, the Future of Politics”, a film made by the Casaleggio Associati in 2008 that became viral a few years later, thanks to innumerable sharings, first by the web and then by more traditional media. Thanks to this distribution, the film has drawn the attention of several commentators. So, why are we still talking about it? Mainly because of two reasons. Beyond public opinion

The first, and more obvious, has to do with the effects of the rise of the 5 Stars Movement “M5S” in the Italian political landscape and the subsequent dramatic overturn, for good or bad, of political communication rules. Even though the video is accompanied by a note where any reference to the M5S is denied,

Great emphasis is laid on the idea of the web: from the cursus publicus, to the web of Genghis Khan’s knights, to the invention of the press and the open letters of Savonarola, to the mass propaganda experiences of the XX century

Gaia represents a must for whoever wishes to better understand some aspects of Beppe Grillo’s movement and his way of conceiving the relationship between communication and power. Finally, it has been widely acknowledged that Gianroberto Casaleggio – personal spin doctor and Grillo’s first counsellor – represents the other side of M5S, with a role, according to some, even more prominent than the founder’s. The second reason is that this video, in addition to expressing a particular view of the “Grillismo”, i.e. the Grillo Philosophy, seems to contain implicitly the seeds of a peculiar theory of public opinion that overturns the traditional meaning of this term and replaces it with the notion of “spokesperson” defined by the Grillo’s-way of thinking and legitimates it through the construction of a possible scenario, the very one imagined by Gaia.

The analysis of this video may help to understand not only the practicalities, but also the communicative ideology of “Grillismo”, one of the most significant phenomena in the Italian social-cultural context of the last few years. History as a battle for information To summarize, before the apocalyptic end, the video runs through the history of humanity as the history of communications and its technologies. A great emphasis is given to the idea of the web: from the cursus publicus, the street system of the Antique Rome, to the

net of Genghis Khan’s knights, efficient ways of communication ante litteram, until the invention of the press and the open letters of Savonarola, the mass propaganda experiences of the XX century, both on behalf of totalitarian regimes and the Western democracies. The ground-breaking event in this millenary evolution is the arrival of Internet, which enabled the planet’s inhabitants to create direct horizontal connections; from the historical past, we then reach the present times (for the spectator) of web and social tools, presented as exceptional means for bottom-up mobilization (meet up, move on, Web activism, etc.) but also as the object of dark repressive maneuvers carried out by the big powers (banks, the Bilderberg group, lobbies). The crucial moment, which takes place exactly half through the video, is the first

The narrator is not a prophet, but a witness, i.e. one that has seen the future and comes back to tell the tale. Someone who has seen, in this case, the catastrophe and its resolution

V-Day, described as “the biggest event ever summoned through the use of new communications technologies”. From here on, the really interesting part begins: the story switches, without a hitch, to the future, to the days we have not lived yet, with a voice-over that keeps talking about events as if they had already happened: the division of the planet, the war, the New World Order.

THE TWO FACES OF THE MOVEMENT Gianroberto Casaleggio and Beppe Grillo, respectively promoter and founder of the Movimento 5 Stelle (5 Star Movement)

Power Point aesthetics As made clear in this short summary, the video does not shy away from eschatological and messianic tones. Even if the intentions were those of a happy ending, Gaia should be registered under the dystopia narrative where an apocalyptic future is imagined through the exasperation of some tendencies within current society (with a happy ending,

APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLS A frame from the video “Gaia. The future of politics”, that widely uses info-graphics, transitions and the typical symbols of business presentations

to an extent, even more terrifying than the dystopia itself). There are some evident cultural references: not just to science-fiction filmography, but also to the many videos in conspiratorial style that go around on the web (as the famous Zeitgeist, very much loved by conspirers). Many people, among which Marco Belpoliti, who says that “who made this video, Casaleggio in primis, has deeply absorbed the culture of the 70s, the apocalyptic vocation of that age with its uncertainties between the past and the future anterior, mixed to the utopias of the personal computer of the 80s and 90s”, when analyzing this video have mostly commented upon some peculiar choices of “style”, that would bring to mind a sort of “power point aesthetics” (short forms, wide use of brief lexias, informative pictures and graphics, voice off and music) typical of the Web and its rhythms. Nonetheless, the most important aspect, perhaps, deals with other, more hidden aspects concerning its narrative form, which are only apparently less important. On one side, the story of the video follows what narrators could define a canonic narrative structure. What is at stake – the object of

value – is then represented by information control: the history of mankind is a story of liberation that develops by taking information out of elite’s hands. The struggle reaches its peak through the Internet, developing into a real war for the use of the Web. The “enemy” - the side that aims at a “top-down” control of the Web - is defeated and the collective wisdom of humanity is finally released. This simple structure holds a complex ideological vision that recalls, in many respects, “the battle” of the M5S movement. Catastrophe and palingenesis In this framework, two elements should be highlighted. The first refers to the common points between the narrative in the video and the more general one of the movement: they share the same type of enemies (never political or economic structures, but always their epitomes: for Grillo, they are the Ka$ta, the Euro, the “pdmenoelle”, the Bilderberg group, the banks, the lobbies) and the subjects (citizen’s liberation through the horizontality of the web), but also the same narrative modalities. In order to better understand, we must go back to the contents of Gaia and to the crucial

moments of the story i.e the apocalyptic phase (war, human massacre) and the liberation one: in order to reach the new global order, a phase of great destruction must be faced first. The palingenesis is necessarily preceded by an ecpirosi, a huge catastrophic event. The analogy with the tsunami image much used by Grillo comes easy: the purifying destruction that will usher in a new democracy, renewed and cleansed. “Grillismo” is, first of all, a “palingenesis speech” of renewal – a “new rhetoric of the new”, very different from 1993 when Berlusconi entered politics. The real political innovation represented by the M5S derives from being the only political force (a parliamentary one at that) to put forward a radical transformation project (albeit rather vague) from where all communicative innovation originates. This palingenesis rhetoricis revealed in several ways by the different souls of the movement – Grillo’s speech, utopian and inspired by Savonarola, the plot-conspiracy scheme of many activists and Casaleggio’s pseudo-scientific “style” - but these different positions share in, at a deeper level, in a common semantic source and a “shared narrative”: the story of an upcoming revolution. In the end, this really seems to be the constant element – perhaps the only one – holding together the various souls and the different communication styles of the movement; this point, largely underestimated by observers too busy grabbing just the communicative innovations of the Grillismo, is worth emphasizing. A conspiratorial teleology? The second point of interest in the video has to do with the more general “Grillo’s narrative”: if, in Grillo’s rhetoric, change is a hope to be fulfilled through a political battle, in Casaleggio’s video, it reaches the level of a historical necessity and a theology. This “theological effect” is obtained thanks to the use of a peculiar time structure, that transforms the chronological succession – past-presentfuture – in a necessary historical development, one oriented towards an anticipation of the future: a sort of future perfect, or if you prefer, a “past future”, to quote the historian Koselleck. There is an apparently insignificant underlying mechanism which, instead, proves to be a great revelation: the narrator is not a prophet (one anticipating future from the present), but a witness, the one seeing the future and coming back to tell the tale. The speaker does not foresee, but is one that has seen. In this case, he has witnessed the catastrophe and its resolution. We are in the

What is at stake in the whole story is information: the history of mankind is a story of liberation that unravels through the expropriation of information from the hands of the power holding elite

sphere of what sociologist Ulrich Beck has called “anticipation of the catastrophe”, typical of our “risk-society” based on the prediction of disastrous events. However, in Gaia, recurring to a catastrophic dystopia creates a revelatory short circuit: the artifice of “the prophecy told by a witness” caused Gaia to speak the same conspiratorial language that brings together many followers of Grillo’s movement. Gaia’s “past future” presents all the ambiguities typical of every “unjustified” revelation: it seems like the show of a plan to be pursued. The disclosure of secrets and lies creates a new secret – in fact, Casaleggio’s prophecies were object of paranoid and involuntary comic episodes on line (is he a freemason? Is he a time traveller?). The video’s success can be ascribed in this language, which, by unravelling worldwide conspiracies, ends up feeding on conspiracies, and producing a variation on the same them, conniving with it at the same time. What about public opinion? What happens to the concept of public opinion of the XX century in Gaia? As in any other type of mediation between citizens and power, public opinion seems to be an obsolete concept in this scenario that may be replaced by the horizontality of the Web, in which all may express their own opinion. Grillo’s idea of the “spokesperson” immediately comes to mind, an individual request carrying collective interests: anyone is free to represent his own thought, without intermediaries: conditional upon being considered legitimate. The concept of spokesperson shifts the issue to another area: the control of legitimacy (whose rules remain implicit). The alleged democratic and coming-from-the-bottom collapse of the vertical intermediation is then translated into the real possibility of a top greater control, of

FRANCESCO MAZZUCCHELLI Semiologist and researcher at University of Bologna and at Vrije Universiteit in

Europe in the mirror by Stefano Mosti*

Economic crisis is the main topic when TV and social media talk about Europe. They talk about austerity and banks, depicting a Europe far from peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s problems. This is what the Observatory of Pavia reports on its last research about the presence and the media representation of the European Union

*A transcription of the speech given during the fourth edition of the International Communication Summit, held in Rome on 24 October, 2013

DEATHS WITHOUT A NAME A flower wreath thrown out to sea by the fishermen of Lampedusa last 5 October to commemorate the victims of the shipwreck occurred two days before

UPRISING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN A Greek protester, symbol of the uprising that are striking Greece because of the serious economic downturn hitting the country

In the digital era, where communication changes its own language and modifies the interaction dynamics between the parties, the role of Europe as an evolving political and civil body shines through: Europe is questioning itself about its own transforming identity. This progressive identity evolution is going on mainly because of the representation of Europe given by traditional and nontraditional media. The research, “Europe in old and new media” offers a cross-cutting image about media presence in Europe. Particularly, the news of mainstream Italian TV and those of main European television networks have been examined and compared, measuring the quantity of time

dedicated to Europe as a whole and in relation to specific topics in the news agenda. The research is completed by some reflections about the opinion trends favoured by these representations. The presence of the headword “Europe” in Italian tweets and the recurrent terms associated to it have been measured as well, yet for a shorter period.

European subjects mainly addressed by the public networks of the Old Continent refer to the economy and the crisis, while the symbolic representations of Europe are completely marginal

were held. In fact, the time dedicated to MEPs during the prime time evening news reaches just 22 minutes in the first six months of 2013, while in 2009 it used to be around 29 minutes. The trend of these four years shows that the peaks of attention given to Europe are related to the theme of economic crisis whit regard to Greece and the Mediterranean countries, including Italy. A crisis the prime time Italian news started addressing not before the 2011 second semester. This outlines a connection between the representation of Europe and the representation of the crisis at media level. Among different TV networks, in 2012, the Rai network gave a higher attention to Europe: the TG1 reached 8.2% in comparison to an average value of 4.9%. With 4.3%, the Tg5 is the first Mediaset newscast. Always referring to the time-frame, from 2009 to 2012, in the media agenda of Italian news, there were wide thematic spaces not devoted to Europe as, for example, those concerning crime news. Europe instead played a relevant role for news concerning economy and labour, where its presence is about 13%, and foreign news and Affairs (11%), whilst the presence of news about Europe in other thematic fields is marginal: politics (4%), social affairs (2%), health and sciences (2%) environment and nature (1%). Figures still confirm that Europe whose mainly referred to when dealing with the crisis. Economy and the crisis on top

A growing presence

The first part of the research analyses, by means of quantity data, the presence of “European” news during the night edition of TV news by Rai and Mediaset, taking into account the time frame that goes from 2009 to 2012. The first positive result is the attention increase given to the European continent: the presence of Europe in Italian mainstream TV grew, considering that in 2009 European elections

The research compares five European countries during the two-year period 2011-2012, taking into consideration the main television networks of each state: channel Ard for Germany, TVE for Spain, Rai1 for Italy, France2 for France and BBC 1 for the United Kingdom. Data show the hegemony of the German channel when dealing with topics concerning Europe, but point out an increase of attention of all the other countries from 2012, except for France

(probably due to presidential elections, resulting in a decrease in attention for international affairs). Italy places itself in an intermediate position, registering 4,7% in 2012: a positive result, which ranks the TG1 within the European average, more than what happened in previous years. The last position is occupied by BBC 1, characterized by negative news about Europe that may be attributed to a Euro skepticism. An element that gathers together the tendencies of all networks and that confirms the link Europe-crisis, is that the greatest attention peaks to European affairs are recorded during events related to economic crisis in the eurozone.

Furthermore, the subjects public networks are mainly interested in when referring to Europe concern economy and the crisis (71%), while the symbolic representation of Europe results completely marginal. The news related to European identity and its roots are almost insignificant if not completely absent (1,3%). In short, when speaking of Europe, for more than two thirds, crisis is at the centre of discussion. Making an overall evaluation and keeping in mind perceptions, a change in opinion mood emerges with regard to Europe and its Institutions. At the level of media representation, Europe is mainly seen as a Europe of austerity: “starving populations” and the ”Brussels’ bureaucrats” are some of the expressions used in the journalistic language to comment some news considered by the research, mostly relating to protests in Spain and Greece. In addition, journalists talk about a Europe of ties, banks and

On Twitter a strong attention is given to the crisis and to illegal landings of Lampedusa, as well as to a completely different level, in emotional terms, i.e. the soccer competitions of the Champions League

finance, and - mainly referring to the dramatic recent episodes linked to illegal landings - they depict an absent Europe for all those topics that mainly worry its citizens and their countries. From soccer to Lampedusa The final chapter of the research is dedicated to the digital area, particularly with reference to the popular social network of Twitter. The purpose was to understand what we are talking about when we speak about Europe in Italian tweets. The period taken into consideration is shorter than the one previously considered and goes from 30th September to 8th October. The analysis of the presence of the headword “Europe”, in this platform (whose contents normally refers to the ones produced for a traditional media) shows a great attention to the crisis, to the dramatic events of illegal landings

THE DOOR TO EUROPE On the top the “Porta di Lampedusa”, a monument by Mimmo Paladino, dedicated to dead immigrants and those lost at sea while trying to reach Europe

in Lampedusa, and also to an facet completely different from the first two in terms of emotional impact, i.e. the Champions League. From a careful analysis of the main words of tweets containing the headword “Europe” every day, a swinging pattern between politics and sport emerges: on 30th September, tweets’ attention was devoted mainly to the institutional area and were dominated by the hashtag #vicepresident, with reference to the appointment of Sandro Gozi as vicepresident to the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council. From 1st October, the interest moves towards soccer with the hashtag #arsenalnapoli, relating to the Champions

A change in opinion mood emerges with regard to Europe and its Institutions. At the level of media representation, Europe is mainly seen as a Europe of austerity

Eurozone crisis, aid to Greece and Spain

Eurozone crisis, financial markets collapse

Greek crisis and ECB interventions

January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September October November December

European elections

THE CRISIS OVER MEDIA The graph shows the main themes discussed during Italian prime time news on channel Rai and Mediaset from 2009 to 2012

League match. The same occurred on 2nd October, when the leading word of tweets about Europe is Lazio’s coach, after a Champions League match. On October 3rd, sport tweets paralleled with tweets concerning immigration: in fact, the headword “sea” shows a frequency similar to “Europe League”, referring to the landings in Lampedusa and to the comments on European soccer. On October 4th the theme about the immigration dominated tweets about Europe. The hashtag #to cry, tied to the national mourning day for the victims of the sinking near the coast of Lampedusa, is the main one. Specifically it is referred to the daily titles of “Buongiorno” of Massimo Gramellini, vice director of “La Stampa”, (with the headline “crying Europe”) and to the blames the “Twitter population” addressed to Italian and European politicians visiting Lampedusa,

accused of hypocrisy. From 5th to 8th October, the socio-political dimension remained dominant: on 5th October, tweets about Europe were mainly marked by the hashtag #interlife, with reference to the International Festival of Ferrara, in particular to the meeting “Process to Europe”; the 6th October t was characterized by the hashtag #tear, through which users denounced politicians, accusing them of weeping “crocodile tears”; on October the 7th tweets on Europe were mainly focused on comments about the European stock exchange, with the hashtag #stockmarket. Finally, on 8th October, digital tweets about Europe regarded mostly internal politics: the use of the word “reliable” was frequent and connected to the most re-tweeted article of the day, published by Vito Lops on the Sole 24 ore , with the title “Italy? the most reliable country in Europe if

The city of the people by Roberta Paltrinieri*

Not only a civic coexistence but the active sharing of rights and responsibilities for the wellbeing of the collectivity that goes from citizens’ commitment and Institutions to the quality of relationships. A book tells the story of the Reggio Emilia Municipality in the project “Europeans for example”

*From the book “Social capital and volunteering: the project” by the kind concession of the Editor

THE UTOPIA OF HAPPINESS Opening, the scene of the film “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang, which has entered the collective imagination as one of the more efficient dystopia of the concept of city. Below, The Nobel Prize Amartya Sen, author of a theory on economic development based on the wellbeing of the citizens instead that on the traditional parameters of income

Why do the citizens of Reggio Emilia, first, and then the citizens of Europe represent such a good example? The answer to this question must lie in the strategic impor¬tance of the project presented in this book, namely the implementation of policies aimed at local and territorial development by exploiting and optimising social capital to promote communal well-being, through the implementation of pathways of active citizenship and responsibi¬lity aimed at involving the community in the implemen tation of public policies. […] To speak of social capital […] actually means discussing local models of development aimed

at producing well-being, rather than “well-having”, as stated by the economist Stefano Bartolini.1[…] Happiness as a prosperity factor Borrowing from the approach to capacities taken by Amartya Sen2 and Martha Nussbaum3, the political scientist Tim Jackson emphasizes how an alternative concept of prosperity must start from the capacity of human beings to be happy. A happiness that appears as “the set of physiological, material, social and psychological conditions that enable a human being

The richest societies are not necessarily the happiest, because often these societies have the greatest inequalities. A new metric is therefore required in order to measure the quality of life, which goes beyond individual income and the ability of countries to create economic wealth

to feel good, to grow and to develop his or her potential through a sense of shared social wellbeing. In order to be happy in this sense, what is required is good health, adequate food and shelter, the opportunity to participate in the life of one’s own community, the sense that your life has a meaning and a purpose.”4 Happiness in a nutshell “depends on our ability to participate meaningfully in the life of society.”5 […] Individual choices in themselves do not suffice, and that the cultural change which is an essential condition of these different choices requires a structural dimension: this means that politics and public policies must offer so-

1. Bartolini S., Manifesto per la felicità (Manifesto for happiness), Donzelli, Roma, 2010 2. Sen A., Globalizzazione e libertà (Globalisation and freedom), Mondadori, Milan, 2002 3. Nussbaum M., Non per profitto (Not for profit), il Mulino, Bologna, 2011 4. Jackson T., Prosperità senza crescita (Prosperity without growth), op. cit., pp. 81-82 5. Ibid. p. 186

lutions which enable human beings to achieve happiness. Thus, as proposed by the Harvard philosopher Sandel6 […] it is of fundamental importance to re-create the concepts of public good and the common good, renewing the commitment of citizens to public spaces and institutions, and sharing a sense of common purpose. […] social participation can occur in simple spaces such as green areas, parks, recreation centres, sports facilities, libraries, museums, public transport, local markets, etc. These “represent places where citizenship is traditionally cultivated, because they allow people with different backgrounds to come together, to feel that their lives have something in common, so that they can come to think of their fellow citizens as fellow-adventurers.”7 Social responsibility and civic culture Talking about a new model of development based on the dimension of social capital […] implies three closely-related dimensions: a) the production of growing levels of social responsibility; b) the promotion of civic culture; c) the production of relational goods, themes which in various ways have been dealt with in this European project. Social responsibility is the result of pathways of awareness created in society in response to its growing needs. This awareness relates to individual as well as social needs, and the ability to reflect on such needs; it can lead to a new form of well-being and a different concept of prosperity. […] It is therefore no coincidence that the European Union (European Charter on Shared Social Responsibilities, 2011, editor’s note) […] proposed a reference to Shared Social Responsibility that could involve a different definition of well-being, no longer identifiable as having but which could reference economic forms that support key principles and values such as trust, reciprocity, solidarity, fairness, authenticity, sustainability, justice, social inclusion, and also ethical and political considerations. […] The fundamental principles of “doing together” and “reciprocal responsibility” which lies at the basis of the paradigm of shared social responsibility, then acquire increasing importance in establishing a new concept of development based on greater social and civil cohesion, aimed at a well-being that is founded not only on parameters of economic wealth, but on the exploitation of knowledge, culture, health and human relations, in

an environmental context that is safeguarded and more liveable. […] From a theoretical point of view, the perspective that should be adopted is that of governance based on collaboration between a variety of players, whose purpose is the assumption of responsibility for the wellbeing of citizens8. Shared responsibility is, in fact, the result of processes of “reciprocal responsibility”, understood as the individual responsibility of each person aimed at the common good, based on their particular skills and subject to their own limitations. As the project Europeans, for example demonstrates, it is the public authorities themselves who have the task of fostering processes of stakeholder engagement in terms of civic engagement, or stimulating the participation of stakeholders in identifying and solving problems […] Promoting active citizenship certainly means implementing the principle of subsidiarity but, at the same time, it means promoting a new form of citizenship: responsible citizenship. This understanding of citizenship brings together various ideas on the theme of citizenship. The first relates to the concept of citizenship as granting entitlement to […] civil, political and social rights. The second concept relates to an idea of citizenship that has to do with the capacity to act. In this sense, welfare policies should no longer be understood as having the sole objective of redistribution and inclusion, but rather of promoting action and triggering virtuous processes of growth and awareness of the subject. The richness of the relationships As the now extensive literature on the topic highlights, the paradox of our lives is centred precisely around the paradox of relational goods [and] arises from the observation that in very different situations and social contexts - at home, at work, at school, in associations, in peer groups - the quality of interpersonal relationships is the factor which carries greater weight in happiness as subjectively understood. […] Therefore if an increase in income results from a significant commitment at work at the expense of the quantity and quality of relationships with friends or family, this could in the end have a negative impact on happiness. A further paradoxical effect is related to the idea that: the loss of relational goods (free and cost-free) involves an increase in the demand for private consumer

6. Sandel M. J., Quello che i soldi non possono comprare. I limiti morali del mercato (What money cannot buy. The ethical limits of the market), Feltrinelli, Milan, 2013 7. Ibid. p.73 8. Lazzarini G., Etica e scenari di responsabilità sociale (Ethics and scenarios of social responsibility), FrancoAngeli, Milan, 2006

Roberta Paltrinieri Professor of Sociology of cultural and communication processes at the University of Bologna, where she manages Ces.co.com (Centre for advanced studies about consumption and communications)

goods (substitutive), which do not produce the same level of happiness as relational goods, with the result that the demand for market goods becomes accelerated: in order to compensate for giving up the relational good, individuals will actually demand an increasingly large quantity of substitute goods - thus creating a perverse spiral of destruction of relational goods in favour of private substitute goods. As stated by Wilkinson and Pickett9, the richest societies are not necessarily the happiest, because often these societies have the greatest inequalities. A new metric is therefore required in order to measure the quality of life, which goes beyond individual income and the ability of countries to create economic wealth. The “Commission for the measurement of economic Performance and social Progress” (CMEPSP) has made a key contribution here: it was established at the beginning of 2008 at the request of the French President Nicholas Sarkozy […] In its objectives, the Commission accepted the main criticisms associated with the measurement of GDP: the fact that economic measurement should be altered to reflect the actual conditions of people, and also that each country should also adopt other indicators to complete the picture of what occurs on the economic, social and environmental planes. […] In Italy (Italian National Council of Economy and Labour) CNEL and ISTAT (Italian Central Statistics Institute), following in the footsteps of Sarkozy’s report, developed the project to measure “equitable and sustainable well-being” (in Italian, benessere equo sostenibile or BES), in relation to which the civic commitment role of volunteering is obvious. The Steering Committee on the measurement of progress of Italian society, composed of representatives of the social partners and civil society, identified 12 dimensions of well-being applicable to Italy: environment, health, economic well-being, education and training, work-life balance, social relations, security, subjective well-being, landscape and cultural heritage, research and innovation, quality of services, politics and institutions. […] An alternative sense of well-being […] cannot neglect the relational dimension because - as demonstrated by the American political scientist - a society of trust with a high level of social capital (other conditions being equal) also enjoys significant economic advantages. […] If it is true that relationships are the most important factor in happiness, then we must reflect on the fact that the deterioration of relational goods is not our unavoidable destiny, but rather depends on the social, cultural and economic organization of a country – factors 64

9. Wilkinson R., Pickett K., La misura dell’anima (The measure of the soul), Feltrinelli, Milan, 2009

THE DUTY OF CITIZENSHIP “Cities, neighborhoods, communities. These are the common assets we are called to govern, assuming we are dealing with physical contexts as well as relationships”: this invitation to enhance and protect a “people’s society” opens the book “Social capital and volunteering: the project: Europeans for example”, written by the Major of the city of Reggio Emilia, Ugo Ferrari and edited by Logo Fausto Lupetti. The book tells about the good practices of solidarity, social responsibility and active citizenship carried out by the city of Reggio Emilia: a rich heritage of cooperatives, organizations and volunteers that has been enhanced since 2008 with the municipal project “I Reggiani, per esempio” (The citizens of Reggio Emilia, as an example). Given the success of the initiative, the social model of Reggio Emilia has been tested beyond national boundaries: in 2011 the city became leader of the project “Euforex. Europeans for example”. The project involved organizations in Madrid, Spain, in Graz, Austria, in Konya, Turkey and in Craiova, Romania and entailed two years of hard work aimed at spreading around good civic and social practices, training over 600 volunteers and creating a shared and “participated” heritage of competencies and values. Both projects (“I Reggiani, per esempio” and “Euforex”) are described in this publication, with an introduction by Graziano Delrio, Minister for Regional Affairs and Autonomy, former Major of Reggio Emilia, and by the current Major Ugo Ferrari. Luca Boetti, Giulia Camurri, Irma Carla Grazia Ferro Filippi, Chiara Guglielmi, Nicoletta Levi and Roberta Paltrinieri contributed to the book offering a theoretical outlook of the policies described and their social implications, emphasizing their role as foundations of a new development pattern.

In Lombardia fashion, design, food and culture live together in a unique region: come to discover the great fashion events, the most original design creations, the food and wine excellencies, and the many cultural sites that are waiting for you in the rich Lombardian territory. For further information go to turismo.regione.lombardia.it or visit the blogrelaxinlombardia.it and the Facebook page "Relax in Lombardia".

A thesis

Research in Italy needs space. ICS is trying to give some. For each issue we give voice to a young communication student or to a researcher, inviting them to present their graduation thesis. Original, accurate and of great scientific value, these valuable works deserve closer attention

Young codes in digital society

A research on communication among peers through chats and SMS

by Cosimo Mirko Vessio

Cosimo Mirko Vessio Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna Faculty of Arts and Philosophy Thesis in Sociology in Multimedia Communication Academic year 2012/2013 Graduation course in Sciences of Public and Social Communication Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Saveria Capecchi

The universe of new technologies is a distinguishing feature of youth. One cannot be described without mentioning the other. As new technologies have come around, writing has become first digital and soon later the domain of what previously belonged to the spoken language, thus making written communication similar to the spoken one. Writing is getting more and more immediate, closer to text messages’ style and more open to convey fuzzy information as required by the new media. One may speak of a “writing revolution” thanks to the immediacy of the feedback provided by the new interactive communication ways very akin to the one you can expect from a face to face conversation. During the last twenty years, the new media have become mass communication tools, used by youngsters and adults for leisure activities, for studying and for managing social relationships. More and more frequently our speeches are “mediated” by these technological devices which have effects on how dialogues are perceived. Due to this converge of writing codes, having all these tools available, allows us to interact with others in an almost uninterrupted dialogue. We may choose the communication method according to the purpose and the speaker. The difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication is overcome by a new semi-synchronous dimension: “a new communication time scale, where the difference between synchronous and semi-synchronous is time. The time that the sender allows the receiver to take before answering a text and the time the receiver takes to reply. These new media instruments allow the dialogue to remain active in users’ mind: even if the exchange is deferred (as it may occur with e-mails or texts), the perception is that of a continuous dialogue. As underlined by the research, the young language, presents itself as a “communication way”, a style that takes over

some speaking modalities. The first studies on the language of the youth show how this linguistic variety is used according to the people involved in the conversation, the context and the situation. In the last few years, there has been a trend towards the use of “informal” language in every situation: let’s think about the use of “you” (in Italian it is common to use the you plural or the third person to address politely to a person) and “hi” even in a formal relations. What the youngsters are mainly interested in and what is getting stronger and stronger in national language is not primarly the naming of “things”, but their “objective value”. We are witnessing the so-called de-semantization and dysphemism phenomena: the first occurs when words lose their original meaning to take a more fuzzy one, the second instead pertains to the replacement of a word with another one, originally used negatively, but divested of negative sense. This type of language is used through sounds and interjections (borrowed from comic strips) not only in written texts, but also in spoken language where by replacing a statement with a less complex and abstract communication. Another original feature observed is the “irony” of youth language, through euphemism and dysphemism which favour an ironic or pejorative nuance as an element of ludic technique. The use of this language by young people worries some linguists fearing that the spreading of these new trends may, sooner or later, inevitably result in the contamination of “standard” language. It’s clear that modern communication may a have negative impacts: at social level, for example, it may damage people’s ability to communicate “live”, particularly with reference to youngsters. The social interactivity of young generations seems to get worse due to the “overuse” of new communication patterns (social network, texts or open chat rooms).

Face Book Harper Reed, graduated in Philosophy and Computer Sciences, he is considered one of the most influential web strategist of the world. He managed the 2012 Obama’s election campaign, contributing significantly to his re-election. From 2005 to 2009, he was the CTO of the clothing company Threadless.com, one of the first to be associated to the activity of crowd sourcing.

QuaRteRlY enGliSH eDition - 01.2014

Betsy Hoover, partner of the company 270 Strategies, she led the digital organization of the 2012 Obama’s campaign. Business Insider included her among the 50 key figures of political innovation. Forbes mentioned her in the list of young talents under 30 for Law & Policy.

Publisher: Pomilio Blumm srl editor-in-chief: Daniela Panosetti

Franco Pomilio, ICS Chairman since 2010 and President of Pomilio Blumm. He graduated in the United States, specialising in marketing at Harvard University, the MIT in Boston and in the Singapore campus of Insead of Fountainbleau. He has worked for the principal multinational advertising companies worldwide. He published “La Repubblica della Comunicazione” (The Communication Republic - 2010 with Francesco Pira), “Comunicazione 3.0” (Communication 3.0 - 2011) and “Comunicare la Trasparenza” (Communicating Transparency - 2013, with Daniela Panosetti).

editorial director: Virginia Patriarca editorial coordination: Simona Di Luzio Published on a quarterly basis art Director: Franco Pomilio

Jung Chang, is a writer and bestselling author. Her autobiographical book “Wild Swans” is currently the most read book about China in the world. The biography “Mao. The unknown story” is the result of more than ten years of research and interviews, revealing new and surprising aspects of Mao Tsetung’s life. Today, it is the most complete biography on Mao ever published. Both books have been translated into over 30 languages, selling around 15 million copies.

Graphic Design: Luca Di Sabatino Nicola Garibaldi Guglielmo Paradisi Production manager: Antonio Di Leonardo

Geoff Mulgan, expert in social innovation and sharing economy, he is currently CEO of NESTA Association (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts). He was Head of Policy and Director of the Strategy Unit of Tony Blair’s government. He founded and ran Demos, a think tank in London.

Print: Artigrafiche Boccia

Pierre Zémor, honorary president of EuroPcom (European Public Communication Conference/Community), State Counsellor of France, former President of the FEACP (European Federation of Public Communication Associations) and of the National Commission du Dèbat Public, today he manages the Commission Nationaled’Agrément des Associations Représentant les Usagers du système de Santé Publique.

editorial staff: Giovanni Cellini Claudio Di Giovanni Alessandra Farias Sara Fiadone Alida Manocchio Antonella Mastrangelo Federica Vagnozzi Contributors to this issue: Antonio Di Leonardo, Rosita Focosi, Antonia Magnacca, Andrea Masci. Photos in this magazine are taken by: wikipedia, thinkstockphotos.it, google

Vincenzo Boccia, CEO of ArtiGraficheBoccia Spa, honorary President of Assafrica&Mediterraneo, he is currently President of Piccola Industria and Vice President of Confindustria. Ron Patz, researcher at the University of Potsdam with a thesis on EU politics’ communication flows. He is interested in Social Network Analysis, mainly in the political field. He works at the Liaison Office of Transparency International in Brussels and is co-editor of Bloggingportal.eu

Francesco Mazzucchelli, semiologist and researcher at the University of Bologna and at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. His research concern memory studies and media. He is the author of several essays and in 2010 published the book “Urbicidio” edited by BUP.

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Stefano Mosti, president and founding partner of the Osservatorio di Pavia, he deals with research and training in the field of media communication. He is member of the Center for Education to the media in Pavia and is part of the honor committee of the Child Guardian Award.

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PReView

Stephen Clark, is currently the Director for Relations with citizens at the European Parliament. He is also the coordinator for the Parliament’s communication campaign for 2014 elections, with the declared goal to make the European Parliament a leader in public and institutional communication.

The next issue of ICS Magazine will be available in July 2014. If you wish to receive the magazine please visit www.inteRnationalCoMMuniCationSuMMit.CoM

Roberta Paltrinieri, professor of Sociology of cultural and communication processes at the University of Bologna. She manages Ces.co.com (Centre for advanced studies about consumption and communications). She has published the following books: “Consumption and Globalization”, “Sustainable consumption and territorial projects” and “Responsible Happiness”. Davide Del Monte, project officer of Transparency International Italy, he is expert in international conventions and laws against corruption. He has followed many projects on the theme of transparency, like the Italian NIS - Corruption and National Integrity Systems. Susanna Ferro, responsible for Communication and Advocacy at Transparency International-Italy, she graduated in International Relations and is attending a Master in Communication for International Relations. Cosimo Mirko Vessio, graduated in Public and Social Communication Sciences, he is an expert in new media, particularly in social network and sportjournalism.