Personal and Group Identity in Facebook Political Posts

The article explores the phenomenon of political communication through social network sites as Facebook, analyzing three messages posted on his Facebook page by an Italian right-wing politician. The research focuses on the discursive construction of the poster's identity and the relationships between in-and out-groups, by paying attention to the intertextual dimension of the Facebook messages. The results reveal that the politician engages in a specific form of dialogue in the public sphere, by challenging the viewpoints previously expressed by other political actors. The posts also construct the migrants arriving to Italy as a dangerous out-group which menaces the preservation of the Italian national culture and identity. In spite of their intertextuality, the posts do not provide a stimulus for a public debate, but serve to reinforce the ideology of the party represented by the poster.