La partecipazione polarizzata: informazione popolare e discussione democratica nella sfera pubblica digitale

The popularization of information languages represents an important tool, which often plays a key role in the extension of democratic debate in the public sphere. In the 16th century, the first forms of journalistic communication, such as print announcements and gazettes, used popular content and language in order to attract a wider audience and thus include these persons in the public debate. Television has enforced the link between popularization of journalism language and participation to the public debate, a link that has somehow entered the structure of digital platforms, with the emergence of social media. However, some characteristics of these platforms may lead to the consumption of information in a way that is closer to the privatization and polarization than to the dialogic confrontation between opinions. This may often happen because of the excessive simplification of the languages of journalism, which thus triggers the risk of rendering more inclusive but less democratic the on-line public debate.