Abstract

One of the common traits of electoral campaigns in Western democracies is the increase in hostility and incivility among candidates and political parties, which are manifested through the spread of slander and discredited voices, insults, attempts at demonization, forms of delegitimization, and stigmatization that sometimes come to be real expressions of hate speech. This study examines the presence of different types of incivility in the media coverage of Italy’s previous two general election campaigns (2018 and 2022). Starting from the recognition that incivility is newsworthy for journalists for the simple fact that it violates established norms, we wondered how much space is devoted to it in the coverage of the campaign. For while it is certainly true that incivility is well combined with the frame of conflict, it is equally true that it is functional to the construction of a partisan narrative.