Abstract

The rise of general secretary Elly Schlein in the Italian Democratic party (Pd) primary elections highlights the influence of generation y as politicians. Popularly known as millennials, they are born in the 1981-1995 cohort, grown up with technology and familiar with computers and mobile phones at the same time. Schlein’s account on social media and her shrewd skill in using these platforms to popularize her program and mobilizing voters exemplify this trend. A common ground with Western generation y can be detected in the political use of Instagram with live video and stories filters to inform, chat and engage the followers. This analysis examines the communication strategies employed on Facebook and Instagram during European (2014), regional (2020), national (2022) and primary (2023) elections, which contributed to enhance her character. By studying Elly Schlein’s leadership, we can identify notable changes in her main issues and highlight their trajectories in the agenda. The research proposes a quantitative analysis of the political language used during these periods, implementing topic modeling techniques to identify recurring themes in her communication style and visualize its evolution over time, examining the terms most closely associated with these topics.