(Finance) – Crime, degradation, conflicts: these are the predominant images that often emerge from the media narratives on suburbs. A reductive and stereotyped story, which omits the social complexity and cultural liveliness of these territories.
It is on this theme that it has concentrated “The story of the suburbs“, second appointment of the cycle of meetings” Understanding, participating, acting “, promoted byObservatory Opinion Leader 4 Future – project for conscious information born from the collaboration between Credem and Almed (High school on average, communication and show of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart), born with the aim of increasing information culture through dissemination and analysis based on research data.
The meeting held online today, Wednesday 26 March 2025, offered one Space of reflection on the growing gap between the representation of the suburbs in the media and the realities experienced daily by those who live them. Too often, in fact, the chronicles favor sensationalism: alarmistic titles, dramatic images, emergency narratives. Behind those stories, on the other hand, a world full of initiatives, relationships, positive experiences, which rarely find space in the information agenda is hidden.
To dialogue on these issues, Marco Dotti, Journalist and teacher of publishing professions at the University of Pavia and director of the communication of the Creative Cultural Company Kreatek, and the ON ON! Social enterprise, Sebastiano Casati and Luigi Tufariellofor years in listening paths, participatory narrative and co-planning in the peripheral neighborhoods of Milan and Rome.
During the meeting it was highlighted as dominant narratives risk feeding fears and prejudices, helping to build a symbolic distance between the center and the periphery, between “us” and “them”, and to make invisible experiences that would instead deserve attention. A more balanced, plural and rooted information in the territories is the first step to mending this gap and building a more authentic understanding of urban social dynamics.
The data of the last search forObservatory Opinion Leader 4 Future on the topics of interest of Italians He helped to contextualize the debate: Only 8% of the Italian population indicates security as the most relevant information theme of the last few months and this percentage rises slightly (12%) also in peripheral territories such as the Milanese hinterland. A figure that clearly contrasts with the media emphasis on emergencies and dangers and that signals a growing distance between what is amplified in the public story and the news that people claim to follow most.
“Too often the suburbs end up in the spotlight for the effects of which they are not the cause, but a consequence of dynamics generated elsewhere. It is precisely when they remain in the shade of the news, however, that those same suburbs show that they are alive: consciousness and soul of cities that, in their centers, have lost them. Learn to look at that shadow with confidence and respectand not with fear, is the first step of a new communicative pact, “he said Marco Dotti, journalist and professions of publishing professions at the University of Pavia.
“Our field experience led us to re -evaluate the suburbs as an invisible treasurewhere experimentation and a strong sense of community intersect, generating new forms of artistic expression and civic participation and solidarity. For example, we have collaborated with numerous formal and informal networks of territorial actors who commit themselves to taking care of the territory and its fragility, experiencing unpublished experiences of solidarity “, he said Luigi Tufariello, Community Manager on! Social enterprise.
The cycle “Understanding, participating, acting”, after the meeting of March 5 on the issues of road safety and 26 March on the story of the suburbs, will continue with the aim of exploring the role of language for more conscious information on issues such as domestic safety (April 9) and sustainability (April 14).