Racism and Immigration in Social Advertising

The human and organizational problems related to the growing immigration phenomenon in Italy in the early '90s marked the launch of advertising campaigns on the issues of racism, immigration and refugees. Social communication campaigns aimed at encouraging citizens awareness of very important social questions and supporting social cohesion (Gadotti 2001, 2005) started to be used by NGOs (Non Governmental Organization), government and private bodies to promote xenophile and collaborative behaviour among Italians towards foreigners. In this study a descriptive-comparative research of print, television and radio advertising campaigns on issues of racism and immigration, launched both by government and NGOs from 1990 to nowadays is carried out. The purpose of the present study is twofold. On the one hand, the objective is to verify whether there are detectable diamesic linguistic and extra-linguistic differences in the transmission of the message within the same campaign, addressed to the same receivers and supported by the same advertising institution. On the other hand, the objective is to infer whether the political context (left wing/ right wing) and the kind of advertising agency (ONG or governmental) influence the representation of foreigners, the kind of relationship (symmetrical or asymmetrical) between Italians and foreigners and the social roles assigned to them in the social communications.