A Fast Adaptation of Communication Strategies. Traditional and New Activists and the Italian Referendum Campaign on Water

Sometimes, circumstances can oblige social movement actors to change their communication strategy. In 2011, a large coalition of organizations challenged the main Italian political parties and the mainstream media, proposing a referendum campaign against water privatisation. This coalition had already proved to be able to organize successful communication campaigns on a large scale, but mostly adopting face-to-face interactions with citizens, debates and petitions. The ambitious goal of winning a referendum, and in particular the high number of citizens that they had to reach, convinced these activists to adapt their communication strategies, and in particular to include a widespread use of social media in the months that preceded the campaign. Contemporaneously, the wave of mobilizations that preceded the referendum gave the possibility to various new activists to join the campaign and experiment their own strategies on the social media, in particular on Facebook. Furthermore, the coalition started to contact some experts in fund-rising and social media campaigners, asking them to volunteer for the campaign. This context became, therefore, particularly useful to observe how different actors included social media in their communication strategies, which kind of actors proved to be able to create successful initiatives, and how the previous experiences of these activists influenced their use of social media. This paper answers to the previous questions, analysing data derived from a two years long observation of the campaign, from interviews and from a list of Facebook initiatives. In particular, the results suggest that professional communication expertise become a central resource for the movements that engage in social media campaigns. Communication experts become, therefore, crucial resources in the movement structure.