The myth of migrant
in digital tribes

The question about how to deal with the huge number of migrants arriving in Italy is still unsolved and the perception
of the phenomenon can be biased due to narrow or fragmental perspectives. Public opinion is often influenced by politicians, celebrities or organizations, which report some information instead of others, choosing precise words, images or topics
linked to migrants while communicating to their followers.
The narratives of influencers are often assumed as the only possible description of the phenomenon, flattening people’s conception. The less point of views get in touch, the more the phenomenon loses its actual complexity. The purpose of the research is to individuate actor-followers groups, and verify if they actually can be defined digital tribes, than, to analyze the different mental images about migration that rise into the

different groups. The research focused on the year 2016 and is based on Facebook’s digital environments. This platform is assumed to render better than others the different hues of each actor-followers group, making possible to express and interact in different ways (free length texts, images, likes). In order to study groups’ imagery, the research attempts to analyze the different used languages, by identifying what are the most used terms to indicate migrants, which words are more connected to them and what images are shared about this topic for each digital tribe. In conclusion we want to analyze the radicalization of different groups’ mental images, trying to recognize the indexes of echo chamber effect, that occurs when groups of like-minded people leave no place for different point of views exasperating their believes.