This Working Paper analyses the main narratives on migration developed in traditional and social media around three different case studies in Italy: the Sea Watch 3 landing to Lampedusa in 2019, which was the first challenge to the new Italian ‘populist’ government’s ‘closed ports’ policy; the debate on Ius soli and the reform of the citizenship law in 2017, charged with identity issues in clashing political and cultural narratives; and the attempted supremacist massacre in Macerata in 2018, occurred during the election campaign and characterised by a debate conveying implicit ideas about deserving and non-deserving victims.

Following BRIDGES Work Package 3 main objectives, this report addresses four interrelated questions: who accesses the public arena and shapes prevailing narratives; where these narratives emerge and how do they travel across different media and platforms; what the main features of successful narratives are; and in which contexts and circumstances (thus when) certain narratives obtain a competitive edge. Each event is analysed considering the news published during the peak period by three major newspapers and two prime-time news broadcasts, as well as using meta and textual data from Twitter. Interviews with relevant stakeholders involved in each event are also used to improve interpretation. The analysis of three case studies very different in nature shows the extreme polarisation of the political debate on immigration in Italy, the almost total exclusion of migrants’ voices from the public sphere, and the different – successful or unsuccessful – strategies employed by the two major political sides.