Second Level. The Effect of Disinformation Content on Users’ Opinion

To analyze the effect of disinformation on the digital public sphere, the analysis on the Italian case was conducted by building a methodological path on two levels. The second level of the work will be illustrated here. It focuses on the response of users who consume disinformative content on social media. The analysis technique chosen to reconstruct the opinions of users formed when they consume the disinformative message is a Hybrid Approach to Opinion Mining. The relationship between disinformative content and user opinion draws attention to the concept of ‘echo chamber’, i.e. digital spaces resulting from human and technological elements that divide users into homogeneous discussion groups within them in which opinions are radicalized around themes common. The results of the second level of analysis show us how in such a segregated communication environment the spread of the polarizing disinformation message (emerged in the first level of investigation) produces a real radicalization of the users’ opinion who take intransigent positions, aggressive tones and hate speech.