Digital geographies and digital surveillance technologies: power and space in the Italian society under control for public health

Social network are shaping relations and socio-economic processes through the automatic production of space that generates new spatialities (Kitchin, Dodge 2011) called cyberplaces (Meek 2011). In fact, digital media are an ever-increasing presence in social movements, political participation and civic engagement. Significant to these debates, digital media and services are becoming increasingly location-based, with more applications providing geographical interfaces and supporting locational data (Elwood, Leszczynski 2013). Since geography information technologies and data available to the public increasingly permeate social movements, bottom-up organizations, citizen groups and the local society, the understanding of different forms of activisms and civic commitment generated by these new spatial media (Crampton, 2009) and the impact produced on affected places is of paramount importance. From softer forms of democracy to participation in real protest movements, these new forms of communication has re-shaped models and practices of mobilization, self-representation and actions. The aim of the proposed paper is based on a collective hub of research, theoretical, empirical and methodological debate. It has the aim of analysing diverse forms, experiences and practices of digital activism and socio-environmental movements, their relations with the territories and their heterogeneous claims and contestations in relation to politics and effects of the environmental crisis and climate change. From a methodological point of view, the examined cyberplaces also called counter-place (Lussault, 2019), will be studied using the discourse analysis and visual methodology, according to an analysis of the semantic web in which digital activism unravels, as well as a visual analysis of counter-places meant as the object of the protest. Whilst the former is useful for understand cultural, social and ideological aspects of a community, the latter help us to understand narrative speaks about a specific place, which produces new spatial forms, its perception and image. The project will investigate the various forms of digital activism and social mobilization related to these topics more in-depth Italy with spots about digital activism for climate change around the world.