At the origins of the political discourse of the 5- Star Movement (M5S): Internet, direct democracy and the " future of the past " (original) (raw)
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Media, Culture & Society, 2014
This article examines the role of discourses about new media technology and the web in the rise of the 5-Star Movement (Movimento 5 Stelle, or M5S) in Italy. Founded by comedian and activist Beppe Grillo and web entrepreneur Gianroberto Casaleggio in 2009, this movement succeeded in becoming the second largest party at the 2013 national elections in Italy. This article aims to discuss how elements of digital utopia and web-centric discourses have been inserted into the movement’s political message, and how the construction of the web as a myth has shaped the movement’s discourse and political practice. The 5-Star Movement is compared and contrasted with other social and political movements in western countries which have displayed a similar emphasis on new media, such as the Occupy movement, the Indignados movement, and the Pirate Parties in Sweden and Germany. By adopting and mutating cyber-utopian discourses from the so-called Californian ideology, the movement symbolically identifies itself with the web. The traditional political establishment is associated with “old” media (television, radio, and the printed press), and represented as a “walking dead,” doomed to be superseded and buried by a web-based direct democracy.
This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the case study of the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle/5 Star Movement (5SM) lead by comedian- turned-politician Beppe Grillo. We argue that the political success of the 5SM was largely dependent on a process of technological fetishism of the Net as an autonomous political agent. We also contend that this process has enabled the party leaders to build an ideology of the movement and represent the 5SM as a grassroots movement based on horizontal networks, participatory democracy, and characterized by the absence of leadership. Conversely, we claim that the digital rhetoric of horizontality, lack of leadership and spontaneity of the party is used to mask, facilitate and reinforce the authority of Beppe Grillo as political leader, thus forging a new type of authoritarianism that is supported and legitimated through the everyday construction of digital discourse.
Digital Capitalism and the End of Politics. The case of the Italian Five-Star Movement
Politics & Society
In the Italian national elections in 2013, the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five-Star Movement, abbreviated 'M5S'), founded just four years before, gained the 25% of votes becoming the most voted party. Analyses and interpretations have been divided between those who consider M5S one of many members of the family of European populism and those who underline how M5S's propositions are akin to the set of values associated with the Left and social movements. The debate on the M5S fits into the context of important ongoing trends in European politics: the growth of populist political movements; the emergence of outsider parties able to challenge stable political systems; changing relationships between parties and social movements; changes in the forms of political organizing. This article aims to contribute to the analysis of these phenomena by examining the case of M5S. The political and cultural nature of this party is investigated by: 1) analyzing its discourse on democracy, its organizational choices and its main issues; 2) comparing these elements with populism and the Left; 3) linking its fundamental characteristics to some central processes of contemporary economy, usually termed 'digital capitalism'.
An Internet-Fuelled Party? The Five Star Movement and the Web
in this chapter, we analyse three dimensions of the Web’s role for the M5S against the backdrop of international theoretical debates and empirical research on digital politics. First, we discuss the narratives that Beppe Grillo and his chief consultant, Gianroberto Casaleggio, have employed to talk about the democratic role of the Internet against some real-world examples of whether and how the M5s upholds democratic principles in its operations. Secondly, we investigate how the Web was employed to select candidates for the 2013 general elections. Thirdly, we assess how M5s voters use the internet to inform themselves about and participate in politics. Our purpose, therefore, is to conduct empirical scrutiny on how the M5S has used the internet as a rhetorical device, as an organisational platform, and as a tool for campaign communication and engagement.
Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement. Organisation, Communication and Ideology
2015
In 2009 Beppe Grillo, a well known Italian comedian, established the Five Star Movement with the aim of sending a handful of citizens to municipal councils to act as the watchdog of a professional political class often perceived as corrupt and self-interested. However, in the Italian general elections of February 2013, despite still largely being considered a small protest movement, the party gained the undisputed role of leading political actor gaining just under 9 million votes and sending 163 Deputies and Senators to the Italian parliament. The birth and rapid rise of the Five Star Movement represents an electoral earthquake with no parallels in Italy and the whole of post-1945 Western Europe and a phenomenon likely to shape the Italian political scene for many years to come. Drawing on an extensive array of data and face-to-face interviews, this volume offers an empirically grounded explanation of the surprising electoral success of the Five Star Movement and presents a realistic picture of this party in its manifold aspects: organisational structure, communication style, linkages with civil society, ideological nature and positioning in the Italian political system.
The (d)evolution of political communication in Italy: Beppe Grillo’s case
Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica
The article aims at analyzing the case of Beppe Grillo and his Five Stars Movement in terms of social, cultural and linguistic phenomenon that – initially as a virtual party without a structured organization – seems to conquer both right-wing and left-wing Italian citizens notwithstanding generational and ideological differences. The success of grillini (Grillo’s supporters) in the parliamentary election of 2018 as a consequence of Matteo Renzi’s constitutional referendum failure, represents a clear sign of the leadership crisis as well as the drifting apart of the ruling class that ignored the problems of ordinary people for several years. The analysis is focused on both form and content: on the one hand, the artistic expression characteristic of Grillo, his gestures, mimicry and direct language plenty of verbal hyperboles, rhetorical figures, swearwords and blasphemous obscenities that build his uncompromising charisma, on the other modern technologies and social media (including ...