Abstract

Effective participation in democratic processes requires informed citizens. The web provides new solutions for fostering citizens’ political participation and engagement, urging citizens to learn and be informed about politics and current affairs in a completely new way. This Insight highlights the characteristics of the new information media diet in the web environment and focuses on the Italian scenario. The article is divided into four sections. First, it presents the profiles of the well-informed citizen 2.0. Second, the article focuses on the characteristics of the information diet of Italian citizens. Third, it reflects on the rise of the content hubs, observing how experimenting with new formats and sources of political information can improve public awareness and interest in politics and current issues. The last section concludes the article and observes that in the digital ecosystem a healthy citizens’ information diet depends on the quality rather than the quantity of political information. All in all, the Insight stresses the need to better exploit the opportunities and potentialities of the web as a source of political news and its key role in well-functioning democracies.