Between Identity, Promotion, and Community: a Comparative Research on the Role of Public Communication in the Activities and Organization of Universities

The article shows the results of a comparative and qualitative exploratory research conducted on the three generalist public universities in Rome: Sapienza University of Rome, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", and Roma Tre University. The aim of the work is to investigate the topic of communication in universities in order to understand whether it represents a crucial element in the strategic policies of a university or merely a normative requirement in terms of transparency and contrasting corruptive phenomena in public administration. This dual approach is one of the key elements both in the evolution of the conception of PA that is currently widespread in public opinion and in the reformatory process of the public administration system. This transformation - which has been active for more than 30 years - has affected public administrations and their communication actions from the point of view of legislation, processes and management and operational models, leading to a "participatory-collaborative" model of the citizen-PA relationship that sees its concrete realization in the Open Government model.