Abstract

Political incivility is a multi-dimensional concept that varies over time and contexts. While scholars agree that «informational incivility» is one key dimension, citizens’ perceptions are less clear. This study examines the degree to which citizens perceive incivility, and particularly informational incivility, comparing two periods: «election campaign» and «everyday- politics». We conducted two surveys (early 2022 and after the 2022 Italian Election campaign) on a representative sample of the Italian population. Results show the existence of a dual mechanism, sensitisation/desensitisation, and the almost antithetical roles played by news media consumption and social media engagement: while the former can be considered a resilience factor to incivility social media activism appears to be a factor of desensitisation to informational incivility, thus contributing to information pollution. Therefore, subjects consuming news attentively are better-equipped to recognize information distortion and more sensitive to its use, whereas among heavy social media users spreading misleading content has become normal practice.