Party competition and media coverage: a study of political strategies in the last Italian election campaign with a focus on the Minimum Income Scheme

In the last Italian general elections (September 2022), political parties in major coalitions took - significantly - different positions on various issues, particularly about the Citizenship Income (Reddito di Cittadinanza, RdC). RdC is a social assistance scheme introduced by the Conte government early in 2019. As known, Italy was the last country in Western Europe to fulfill this gap in social assistance (Saraceno et al. 2020) and its implementation represented an important shift in the history of the Italian welfare state. However, since its very beginning the RdC has given rise to several debates and harsh criticisms both between and within the main Italian political parties. The proposal of the RdC downsizing reform united not only all the right-wing political forces but also some liberal, pro-market parties and part of the center-left coalition. This political debate took place in a context characterized by strong instability and uncertainty also due to COVID-19 pandemic and Italian government crisis. The agenda-setting dynamics, as influenced by the media, in conjunction with communication strategies employed during an electoral campaign, compel political actors to adopt more assertive stances on the given issue, notably exceeding the level of assertiveness observed during non-electoral campaign periods. The refusal for universalistic policy measures for all poor comes from a strong, long-lasting pro-labor culture within the Italian welfare state. This can explain, on the one hand, the specific Italian model of poverty (Paugam 2005; Morlicchio 2012; Saraceno et al. 2020), in which the stigmatization of the undeserving poor also depends on an "unstable neo-corporativism" that has characterized the relationship between trade unions, employer’s associations and political institution. While vulnerable people compose an uneven, loose and inconsistent electorate base (i.e. young people, elderly and disabled, adults with children), their political interests have been fragmentally represented by both left-wing and right-wing parties whose political and ideological positions on RdC were driven by electoral strategies. Through a comparative perspective, the article aims at investigating the connection between the attention devoted by the Italian media (notably, prime time newscasts of main Italian tv channels) to Citizenship Income and the political positions on the matter taken by political members and parties. The research relies on qualitative methods: content and text analysis (through a systematic selection of both issues and party positioning on RdC retrieved in transcripts of Italian prime time from 2020 to 2022). The source of data collection will be the Osservatorio di Pavia, a research institute specialized in media monitoring and communication analysis. After coding the positioning of each political party, with respect to the policies to be adopted to reform, abolish or keep the RdC, our aim is to scrutinize any changes with respect to these positions comparing three sub-periods: pre-election, election campaign and post-election period (2020-2022). Via analysis of Italian news prime, the attempt is to ascertain how political communication strategies of political parties and leaders vary in the three sub-periods considered and, consequently, which are advantages/disadvantages of positioning on the given issues for political actors.