ABSTRACT
In this book, I explored the 2011 referendum on water privatization as an example of well-developed, large-scale, diffused campaign that relied on online resources to develop. During this investigation, I had the opportunity to observe, in particular, how the water activists faced different communications needs through their campaign, how they adapted their actions to various digital communication spaces, and how they combined online actions with different forms of direct, offline initiatives directed to a vast groups of citizens and organizations. Furthermore, in this research I chose to follow the activists where they slowly decided to communicate: even if I reserved a certain level of attention to websites, blogs, and even traditional non-digital communication, this book mainly shows how the activists gradually colonized a new communications space, the Italian Facebook sphere. Through diffused, distinct experiments, the water activists used social media to encounter less engaged citizens, establishing a new kind of relationship between organizations, initiatives, and a sympathetic population. Finally, on Facebook, the water activists promoted a widespread circulation and remix of symbols, opening new models of communication that proved to be effective, in particular, because they combined local personalized actions within a common national framework.
