University of Urbino
Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies
Fabio Giglietto is a Full Professor of Internet Studies at the Università di Urbino Carlo Bo, where his academic focus lies at the intersection of computational social science, the analysis of digital platforms, and political communication. His research primarily investigates information disorders and coordinated behavior on social media. He shares his expertise by teaching courses on Generative AI and Media and Digital Social Network Analysis, reflecting his commitment to understanding and addressing contemporary challenges in the digital landscape. Professor Giglietto completed his doctoral studies at the same institution, building a strong foundation for his specialized work.
He is the founder and coordinator of the Mapping Italian News Research Program (MINE), an initiative established at the University of Urbino in 2017. MINE has served as an institutional umbrella for a succession of externally funded sub-projects, exploring Italian media coverage and the impact of social media on electoral processes, public opinion, and health information. Within the MINE program, Professor Giglietto co-developed CooRnet, an open-source R package that introduced the influential Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior (CLSB) detection method. CooRnet is now operationally discontinued following the shutdown of Meta's CrowdTangle in August 2024; however, the CLSB methodology it pioneered continues to be applied in downstream tools like the independently maintained CooRTweet R package, of which he is not a co-developer.
On the European front, Professor Giglietto played a significant role as WP4 Leader for the Horizon Europe project vera.ai, which concluded in October 2025 and focused on developing AI-based tools for countering disinformation. He also contributed as a Partner on PROMPT, a European Commission initiative dedicated to monitoring disinformation narratives, which concluded in February 2026. While all externally funded MINE sub-projects have now concluded, the MINE program itself remains active as the institutional framework for his ongoing research line, though currently without active external grants. He is an active member of the International Communication Association (ICA), the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), and the Italian Association for Political Communication, and has served on the board of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics.
Giglietto, F., & Marino, G. (2026). Beyond the share button: How partisan alignment, journalistic quality, and algorithmic governance shape what millions see on Facebook. Platforms & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/29768624261452529
Giglietto, F., & Puschmann, C. (2026). From the Wild West to the Walled Garden. M/C Journal. https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.3257
Giglietto, F. (2026). Amplifying extremes: the interplay of social media and traditional media in shaping political polarization. Handbook of Social and Communication Networks. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035325047.00023
Giglietto, F., Terenzi, M., Chakraborty, A., & Marino, G. (2026). Synthetic seduction: Evolving visual persuasion in coordinated online gambling promotion with generative {AI}. Countering Disinformation in the Era of Generative AI. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-11782-3_4
Giglietto, F. (2025). "A Pretty Blunt Approach": Meta's Political Content Reduction Policy and Italian Parliamentarians' Facebook Visibility. Center for Open Science. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/8dqag_v2
Research programme active at the University of Urbino since 2017, investigating Italian media coverage and the impact of social media on electoral processes, public opinion and health information. MINE has hosted a succession of externally funded sub-projects (listed separately below). All sub-grants are now concluded; the programme remains active as the institutional and intellectual umbrella for the PI's ongoing research line, with no active external grant at present.
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European Commission project (DG CNECT) dedicated to monitoring disinformation narratives in Europe, addressing sensitive issues including the war in Ukraine, LGBTQI+ rights, and European elections through the development of language models, monitoring dashboards, and educational resources for fact-checkers and journalists. MINE sub-project.
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Horizon Europe project developing AI-based tools to assist journalists and fact-checkers in verifying multimedia content and countering disinformation. As WP4 Leader, Fabio Giglietto led the work package focused on detection of coordinated behaviour and inauthentic networks spreading misleading content. MINE sub-project.
Learn moreGroundbreaking research by Meysam Alizadeh et al. demonstrates the capability of AI coding agents to reproduce social science findings, indicating a significant development in computational social science methodologies.
Read moreA recent study by Lion Wedel investigates how young adults perceive informativeness on audio-visual digital platforms, offering insights into decoding these perceptions.
Read moreInsights into online phenomena are offered by Megan A. Brown et al. in their recent paper, which evaluates the mechanisms of echo chambers, rabbit holes, and radicalization pathways specifically on the YouTube platform.
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