Public Sector Communication and Gender Perspectives. Social Media Practices of Italian Regions

The EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-25 places con¬siderable emphasis on addressing and eliminating gender-based discrimination within the European Union. The strategy’s objective is to promote diversity and enhance human well-being as drivers for growth and innovation in all aspects of life (European Commission 2021). The concept of gender mainstreaming is recog¬nised as a long-term approach to policy-making that integrates a gender equality perspective at all stages and levels of policies, programmes and projects. This approach is designed to facilitate the transformation of institutions and influence organisational culture (Eige, 2016). In this context, the use of gender-sensitive com¬munication is of paramount importance in guaranteeing transparency, commitment, and the adoption of an in¬tersectional approach that considers the interaction between a multitude of factors, including gender, ethni¬city, disability, and sexual identity, with respect to both verbal and visual languages. The EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 explicitly emphasises the necessity of implementing institutional commu¬nication campaigns to combat violence, raise awareness, and avoid gender stereotypes in both verbal and visual content. In this context, public sector communication is identified as a strategic tool for fostering a more inclusive society. This is achieved by reducing citizens’ distrust towards institutions and renewing public administrations (PAs), particularly within the current hybrid and convergent media ecosystem. This issue has gradually become a prominent topic in public discourse with the emergence of new forms of online activism and queer movements that have encouraged the implementation of sensitive policies at both interna¬tional and European levels to prevent and address discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Furthermore, there has been a notable increase in the focus on gender and public sector communication studies, particularly during the pandemic. Nevertheless, in Italy, the imple¬mentation of a gender-sensitive approach has remained relatively limited, despite an increasing emphasis on the use of non-discriminatory language in public administrations through institutional recommendations and local guidelines. Furthermore, there is a gap in the literature about the analysis of the employment of public communication professionals within the infor¬mation and communication offices of Italian PAs, with a gender lens. Based on these premises, this exploratory study researches the relation between the institutionalisation of gender-sensitive communication approa¬ches and their implementation in social media practices. After introducing a theoretical framework on the following section, aims, methods, and data collection are explained. Subsequently, the main empirical findings are des¬cribed, analysed and interpretated. The final section consists of discussion, conclusions and further implications.