The advent of web 2.0, the affirmation of social media, the possible spread of the metaverse have made public discourse move to a horizontal, digital, commercial open platform. The horizontal character of the platform has undermined the intermediation processes that imposed, for better or for worse, their own order on public discourse. The digital nature of the new communication channels has moved our daily interactions into an unprecedented socio-communicative universe which, to be used usefully, would require skills that go far beyond those that most of the users have. The management of the platforms by colossal advertising agencies has subjected the public discourse to profit logics that require the user to be kept online for as long as possible through exposure to content consistent with his profile and inclinations and how much as captivating as possible. The pursuit of this logic has, on the one hand, segregated users into eco chambers in which they only receive messages that confirm them in their respective and often divergent representations of reality; and on the other hand, it has led to the proliferation of content characterized by discursive excess: sensationalism, fake news, hate speech, extreme and polarizing messages.
All observers agree on the need for a vast educational intervention aimed at creating a widespread ability to communicate online. However, at present, education in digital public discourse is limited to the transmission of a set of technical-procedural knowledge that is useful but insufficient to address the complexity and rapid mutability of the technological and cultural changes underway.
In this talk I will illustrate the contribution linguistics can make, on one hand, to the deep understanding of the impact of digital revolution on public discourse dynamics and on the other hand to the reinforcement of the technical, epistemological, communicative, argumentative and linguistic competences necessary to develop discourse awareness.
In line with the linguistic analyses conducted within the framework of the “Dive-in. Diversity and Inclusion” research project, I will focus in particular on the indirect, albeit disruptive, impact that the economic and communicative model underpinning social media platforms has had in the last ten years on the social construction of the category of migrant by showing how the far-right has been able to understand and ride these dynamics and impose, thereby, its own categorization of social reality.
