Environmental Activism: An Analysis of the Italian Context

This study was conducted in the context of political participation, and it investigates the phenomenon of environmental activism in Italy. In recent years, environmental activism has been in the limelight: the impact of climate change has expanded the pool of activists and discussions on environmental issues (Cody et al., 2015). This theme is included in the broad debate on activism and its declinations. Indeed, over the past 20 years, a new type of activism has been developed that uses digital infrastructure to foster change and achieve political, social, and other goals (George & Leidner, 2018). The goal of this study is to explore the phenomenon of environmental activism by specifically examining the relationship between online and offline activism. It is relevant to clarify how online and offline activism have equal status in this study (Sivitanides & Shah, 2011). The hypothesis on which it is based is that the level of commitment (George & Leidner, 2018) and concern for specific environmental issues are conditioned by residence in a particular area (Stedman, 2002) and socioanagraphic characteristics (Schradie, 2018). The framework that supports the analysis of the phenomenon is the one proposed by Milbrath in 1965 and later reworked by George and Leidner in 2019, who studied political participation, respectively offline and online (Milbrath, 1965)(George & Leidner, 2018). The approach used for the methodology is standard (Marradi, 1984): the data collection tool was a web-survey (Veltri, 2019), posted on the main social networks and filled out by 946 users, living in Italy, during the period from June 2022 to January 2023. The web survey proved to be a useful tool for analyzing individual actions taken by people (George & Leidner, 2018), giving us a general overview of the state of activism in Italy. Moreover, it was also useful for making methodological reflections on the limitations and potential offered to us by using digital tools.