ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of social media in shaping hope and visions for a better future among people affected by the global economic crisis that started with the Wall Street crash in 2008 and went on to hit Italy and the world. By viewing hope as mediated practice, the chapter shows the ways in which social media and hope are interconnected and co-construct each other. Among unemployed and precarious workers in Northern Italy, the hope mediated by social media tends to be more about surviving the difficulties of the present rather than working towards a better future. It helps people better cope with the consequences of structural inequalities, and eventually reproduces precarious workers’ subordinations. The chapter advocates for the use of the conceptual tools from media anthropology to enhance the ethnographic study of hope, marginalisation and social inequality in neoliberal times.
