@article {2826,
	title = {Emotional Politics, Islamophobic Tweet. The Hashtags $\#$Brexit and $\#$chiudiamoiporti},
	journal = {PARTECIPAZIONE E CONFLITTO},
	year = {2019},
	abstract = {Contemporary far-right politicians increasingly diffuse messages through social networks. This article argues that online communication may prove effective for political engagement because it can create emotional reactions against certain groups, in a process that I call "emotional antagonism." An example of emotional antagonism is online Islamophobia, which considers Islam as supposedly incompatible with democratic values and tends to conflate Muslims with migrants. Through qualitative observations and textual analyses of tweets, this article explores the following questions: How do certain online exchanges emotionally frame Muslims as the social "others" in relation to European culture? Why and how does the Internet facilitate the spread of emotional antagonism? What type of political propaganda and participation is connected to affective online Islamophobia? The article analyses two case studies: 1) Islamophobic tweets sent in the aftermath of the British referendum in 2016, with the hashtag $\#$Brexit; 2) Anti-Muslim tweets that contain the hashtag $\#$chiudiamoiporti (close the ports), launched by Italian Vice Prime Minister Matteo Salvini in 2018 to support anti-migration measures. The article shows that exploring emotional antagonism can add complexity to the current understanding of Islamophobic conflicts, of social media platforms{\textquoteright} characteristics, and of political participation based on online communication.
},
	keywords = {Brexit, Islamophobia, Matteo Salvini, migration, Twitter},
	url = {http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/article/view/21281},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
@article {2845,
	title = {Materiality, Authority, and Digital Religion: The Case of a Neo-Pagan Forum},
	journal = {Entangled Religions},
	year = {2020},
	abstract = {The study of material culture increasingly pays attention to digital religion, but there are certain aspects, such as religious authority, that remain underresearched. Some questions are still open for inquiry: What can a material approach contribute to the understanding of religious authority in digital venues? How can authority be materially displayed on the Internet? This article shows how religious authority is affected by material practices connected with digital media use through the qualitative analysis of a NeoPagan forum, The Celtic Connection. NeoPagans tend to hold a non traditional notion of authority, accord great importance to material practices, and extensively use the Internet. The analysis of the forum suggests that NeoPagans use digital venues to look for informal sources of authority and strategies to embed materiality in online narratives. The article claims that it is important to develop new frameworks to analyze nontraditional authority figures and new definitions of media that include both physical objects and communication technologies.
},
	url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342361993_Materiality_Authority_and_Digital_Religion_The_Case_of_a_NeoPagan_Forum},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
@article {2823,
	title = {The veil and its materiality: Muslim women{\textquoteright}s digital narratives about the burkini ban},
	journal = {Journal of Contemporary Religion},
	year = {2019},
	abstract = {In the summer of 2016, around 30 French cities banned the burkini{\textemdash}swimwear used by Muslim women that covers the entire body and head{\textemdash}from public beaches. French authorities supported the ban by claiming that the burkini was unhygienic, a uniform of Islamic extremism, and a symbol of women{\textquoteright}s oppression. Muslim head-coverings, including the burkini, are religious objects whose materiality points to complex semantic meanings often mediated in Internet discourses. Through a qualitative analysis of visual and textual narratives against the burkini ban circulated by Muslim women, this article looks at the way digital media practices help counteract stereotypes and gain control of visual representations. Muslim women focus on two main topics: 1) they challenge the idea of Muslims being {\textquoteleft}aggressors{\textquoteright} by describing the burkini as a comfortable swimsuit not connected with terrorism; 2) they refuse to be considered {\textquoteleft}victims{\textquoteright} by showing that the burkini holds different meanings that do not necessarily entail women{\textquoteright}s submission. Muslim women{\textquoteright}s digital narratives positively associate the materiality of the burkini with safety and freedom and focus on secular values rather than religious meanings.},
	url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537903.2019.1658936?journalCode=cjcr20},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
@article {2829,
	title = {The Myth of Catholic Italy in Post-Fascist Newsreels},
	journal = {Media History},
	year = {2018},
	abstract = {This article analyzes how Catholicism had a central role in the identity-creation process after the War. The study employs the online archive of the national agency {\textquoteleft}Istituto Luce{\textquoteright} to analyze 261 newsreels about religion released between 1946 and 1965. The article uses (i) Benedict Anderson{\textquoteright}s work on imagined communities and (ii) Roland Barthes{\textquoteright} concept of mythology as theoretical frameworks. This study indicates that the majority of newsreels presented Catholicism as intertwined with Italian politics, and as a central element of both tradition and modernity. These findings suggest that the newly formed Italian democracy used the media to emphasize certain aspects of Catholicism, while overlooking others, such as its implications with the Fascist regime. In this way, the media contributed to create a post-war myth where Catholicism represented a moral resource for the country{\textquoteright}s leaders and citizens. This historical process contributes to explain the contemporary pervasiveness of Catholicism in Italian media.
},
	url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13688804.2016.1207510?journalCode=cmeh20},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
@article {2799,
	title = {Hate in a Tweet: Exploring Internet-Based Islamophobic Discourses},
	journal = {Religions},
	year = {2018},
	abstract = {Islamophobia is the unfounded hostility against Muslims. While anti-Muslim feelings have been explored from many perspectives and in different settings, Internet-based Islamophobia remains under-researched. What are the characteristics of online Islamophobia? What are the differences (if any) between online and offline anti-Muslim narratives? This article seeks to answer these questions through a qualitative analysis of tweets written in the aftermath of the 2016 British referendum on European Union membership (also known as {\textquotedblleft}Brexit{\textquotedblright}), which was followed by a surge of Islamophobic episodes. The analysis of the tweets suggests that online Islamophobia largely enhances offline anti-Islam discourses, involving narratives that frame Muslims as violent, backward, and unable to adapt to Western values. Islamophobic tweets also have some peculiar characteristics: they foster global networks, contain messages written by so-called {\textquotedblleft}trolls{\textquotedblright} and {\textquotedblleft}bots,{\textquotedblright} and contribute to the spreading of {\textquotedblleft}fake news.{\textquotedblright} The article suggests that, in order to counteract online Islamophobia, it is important to take into account the networked connections among social media, news media platforms, and offline spaces.},
	url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/9/10/307/htm},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
@article {2828,
	title = {Hybrid Muslim identities in digital space: The Italian blog Yalla},
	journal = {Social Compass},
	year = {2017},
	abstract = {Islam is often regarded as being incompatible with European values. In Italy, for example, anti-Islamic points of view reiterate the religion{\textquoteright}s alleged inconsistency with Catholicism and secularism. This article argues that narrative practices can challenge this idea by articulating Muslim hybrid identities that are compatible with Italian culture and society. The second-generation blog Yalla Italia represents a {\textquoteleft}third space{\textquoteright} where young Italian Muslims contrast dominant media stereotypes, thereby creating {\textquoteleft}disruptive flows of dissent{\textquoteright}. A textual analysis of the blog and interviews with some of the bloggers reveal that three main topics are employed to overcome marginalization: (1) critiques of mainstream media (2) narratives about family lives and the practice of Islam, and (3) advocacy of a quicker procedure for gaining Italian citizenship. The bloggers adopt a storytelling style to press for social and institutional change and explain how they succeed in adapting Islam to Italian society. Their religious diversity is thus perceived as providing a potential for Italy, rather than being a mark of marginalization.
},
	keywords = {internet, Islam, Italy},
	url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0037768617697911},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
@book {2738,
	title = {Blogging My Religion: Secular, Muslim, and Catholic Media Spaces in Europe},
	year = {2018},
	abstract = {Religion in Europe is currently undergoing changes that are reconfiguring physical and virtual spaces of practice and belief, and these changes need to be understood with regards to the proliferation of digital media discourses. This book explores religious change in Europe through a comparative approach that analyzes Atheist, Catholic, and Muslim blogs as spaces for articulating narratives about religion that symbolically challenge the power of religious institutions.
The book adds theoretical complexity to the study of religion and digital media with the concept of hypermediated religious spaces. The theory of hypermediation helps to critically discuss the theory of secularization and to contextualize religious change as the result of multiple entangled phenomena. It considers religion as being connected with secular and post-secular spaces, and media as embedding material forms, institutions, and technologies. A spatial perspective contextualizes hypermediated religious spaces as existing at the interstice of alternative and mainstream, private and public, imaginary and real venues.By offering the innovative perspective of hypermediated religious spaces, this book will be of significant interest to scholars of religious studies, the sociology of religion, and digital media.},
	isbn = {9780367584870},
	url = {https://www.routledge.com/Blogging-My-Religion-Secular-Muslim-and-Catholic-Media-Spaces-in-Europe/Evolvi/p/book/9780367584870},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
@article {2827,
	title = {$\#$Islamexit: inter-group antagonism on Twitter},
	journal = {Information, Communication \& Society},
	year = {2019},
	abstract = {While analyses of Twitter have shown that it holds democratic potential, it can also provide a venue for hate speech against minorities. The articulation of opinion-based identities, the tendency to homophily, and the use of emotional discourses can indeed help spread verbal violence on Twitter. This paper discusses group polarization on Twitter through Mouffe{\textquoteright}s distinction of agonistic and antagonistic politics, as elaborated in the 2013 book {\textquotedblleft}Agonistic: Thinking the World Politically{\textquotedblright}. The theory is supported by a practical example: a qualitative analysis of Islamophobic tweets sent in the aftermath of the 2016 British referendum on European Union membership, which is commonly referred to as {\textquoteleft}Brexit{\textquoteright}. Following the UK{\textquoteright}s decision to leave the EU, there was a surge of Islamophobic attacks on Twitter. My analysis reveals that anti-Islamic sentiments were articulated in terms of complex identities referring not only to religion but also to ethnicity, politics, and gender. The paper shows that these tweets are antagonistic in character because they prevent the dialogic participation of Muslims and propagate symbolic violence rather than engaging in constructive conflicts.},
	url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1388427?journalCode=rics20},
	author = {Evolvi, Giulia}
}
