Media and Social Representations of Otherness

This book presents the main findings of an empirical exploration of media discourses on social representations of "otherness" in seven European countries. It focuses on the analysis of press discourses produced over a fifteen-year period (2000-2015) on three contemporary figures of otherness that challenge the identity of European societies, question the attitudes towards diversity, and pose significant challenges for policy-makers: immigration, Islam, and LGBT. The book provides a comprehensive and articulate map of how national media addresses such themes from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, revealing patterns of continuity and discontinuity across time and space. Lastly, it discusses these patterns in the light of their cultural meanings and their influence on social and political collective behaviours.

Autorentext
Terri Mannarini: Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Salento. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Community Psychology Association and editor-in-chief of the international journal Community Psychology in Global Perspective (http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/cpgp). Her research interests are focused on the analysis of the psychosocial processes pertaining to collective action and community development. She has been investigating a range of phenomena including protest movements, public decision-making processes, active citizenship, community development interventions, inter-ethnic relationships, and social change. Her research is based on a social and community psychology background, yet with a strong interdisciplinary approach resulting from the integration of social psychology with social and political sciences.

Giuseppe Alessandro Veltri holds a BSc in Psychology of Communication from the University of Siena, an MSc in Social Research Methods (Statistics) from the Methodology Institute of the London School of Economics (LSE) and a PhD in Social Psychology from the LSE. He is Associate Professor of Research Methodology and Cognitive Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento. He was Senior Lecturer at University of Leicester. He has been Lecturer at University of East Anglia and a scientific fellow at the European Commission JRC Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS). Before joining the IPTS, he has been a research associate at the Institut Jean Nicod (Ecole Normale Supérieure) in Paris. He has published in scientific journals such as Nature, PLOS One, Computers in Human Behavior, Public Understanding of Science, Big Data & Society and others. My current research agenda and my research-led teaching focus on the following areas: 1) The study of public opinion dynamics and social representations using a computational social science framework; 2) The development of research methodologies of a computational nature to social science problems 3) the intersection between sociology and behavioural sciences in the form of cognitive sociology. Sergio Salvatore: Sergio Salvatore: Professor of Dynamic Psychology at La Sapienza Università di Roma. His scientific interests regard the psychodynamic and semiotic theorization of mental phenomena and the methodology of analysis of psychological processes as field dependent dynamics. He also takes an interest in the theory and analysis of psychological intervention in clinical, scholastic, organizational and social fields. On these issues he has designed and managed various scientific projects and published more than two hundred works. Associate editor of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science; Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome; RPC Rivista Psicologia Clinical-Review of Clinical Psychology.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Part I: The identity-otherness dynamics.- Chapter 1. Identity, otherness, and sociocultural dynamics (Sergio Salvatore).- Chapter 2. Theories and methods (Alessia Rochira).- Part II: Maps of Otherness.- Chapter 3. Immigration (Giuseppe A. Veltri).- Chapter 4. Islam (Gordon Sammuta).- Chapter 5. LGBT (Alina Pop).- Part III: Symbolic resources for the representation of otherness.- Chapter 6. The semiotic construction of Otherness (Sergio Salvatore).- Chapter 7. An interpretative model: Semiotic fields and semiotic forces (Sergio Salvatore).- Chapter 8. Implications for policy-making and further developments (Giuseppe Veltri).