(Dis)ordering gender strategies in Italian public sector communication. Regulation, social media practices and the role of professionals at local level

Ethical and responsible dimension of organizational communication (Bowen 2016; Gonçales-Oliveria 2022; Luoma-aho, Badham 2023), which involves also the public sector (Canel, Luoma-aho 2019; Materassi, Solito 2021; Lovari, Ducci 2022). In particular, the importance of more inclusive and diversity-sensitive communication strategies is highlighted in the public debate on gender-sensitive policies both at international level (UNESCO 2020; European Commission 2020) and at national one (e.g. National Plans for Recovery and Resilience, and National Strategies for Gender Equality 2021–2026). Therefore, several new challenges arise for public sector communicators in European countries, concerning the development of professionals’ skills and capacities (OECD 2021). Looking specifically at the Italian context, the attention on public sector communication strategies towards gender issues emerged slowly, often appearing barely visible (Faccioli 2020), and it has been growing only starting from the pandemic (Lovari, D’Ambrosi 2022; Faccioli, D’Ambrosi 2023). In particular, previous research (D’Ambrosi et al. 2023; Spalletta et al. 2023) has highlighted how institutional public communication, especially in digital environments, runs at different speeds at the regional level when it comes to addressing gender issues and/or adopting gender-sensitive approaches: on the one hand, official guidelines (where adopted) tend to differ from each other in respect to the different fields and languages they address (administrative and normative texts vs. institutional communication; verbal vs. visual language); on the other hand, communication practices differ both in respect to the attention they paid to gender issues in ordinary coverage and media hypes and in the adoption of a gender-sensitive approach in verbal and visual languages. Based on these premises, this paper pursues the ongoing research aiming to achieving two different goals: 1. to explore the role of communicators/professionals in developing gender-sensitive communication strategies in those Italian Regions in which guidelines were adopted (involvement in decision-making, autonomy, creativity, skills/knowledge, training); 2. to extend the analysis to those Italian Regions that have not yet adopted suitable guidelines, considering that: a) the existence of guidelines does not necessarily lead to gender-sensitive communication; b) a gender-sensitive communication can take shape even in the lack of those guidelines. From a methodological point of view, this study carries out a mixed methods approach (Creswell 2015), which blends in-depth interviews with communicators/professionals from Regions which provided themselves with guidelines, and social media content analysis of the official Facebook pages of Regions without guidelines. The study tends to confirm a marked unbalance between regulation and communication practices, because of different communication cultures, resources (dedicated structures, professionals, etc.) and influence of political governance (left-leaning coalitions vs. right-leaning ones) among Italian Regions. In this scenario, the empowerment of communicators (Grunig 2009; 2016) stands out as even more relevant in reinforcing the trustee relationship between institutions and citizens that represent the main goal of public institutional communication.