Sentiment and Visual Analysis. A Case Study of E-Participation to Give Value to Territorial Instances

In addition to upsetting consolidated socio-economic and cultural structures, ICT has contributed over the last two decades to re-modeling not only relationships between individuals, but also between the latter and their territories of origin, urging new and unprecedented ways of participating in the territory which are declining according to different levels of activism. From softer forms of democracy to participation in real protest movements, the potential of these new forms of communication have re-shaped models and practices of mobilization, self-representation and actions. Representations and narratives which have not only widened the possibilities of democratic participation for minority groups, but for social movements, activists, and generally for local communities that, through the use of participatory tools of representation of the territory, have become interpreters and protagonists of its socio-cultural value. Through the web, these new netizens have a place to renegotiate their own needs, build narratives and mobilize new activists, by putting into question previous assumptions on which urban neoliberism is based and laying claim, with new tools, their ‘right to the city’ and the vision of spatial justice (Graziano 2017). Starting from e-democracy (Macintosh 2004, p.2) there have been cascades of e-participation phenomena generated with new ways of self-involvement of citizens through new technologies. In order to assess the mutual relationship between new technologies, urban activism, public spaces and participatory democracy, a case of Italian digital activism representative of the repertoire of online and offline strategies, actions and narratives will be selected. From the methodological point of view, the various stages of research, foresee development on two axes: Sentiment Analysis; Discourse Analysis (Rose 2016). The analysis will try to understand if online activists maintain a territorial anchor with cyberspace (Wellman2001; Meek2012). The informational and communicative links associated with social media create a contemporary existential range which intertwines with the lives of the prosumer, drawing new relational geographies thus allowing social movements to expand and create new connections. A virtual spatiality, however, that reflects on the web the fragmentation of movements in the real dimension, in which different souls converge but also, at the same time, the ability to anchor themselves territorially in different contexts.