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 he also earned his doctorate. He imparts his expertise through courses such as Generative AI and Media and Digital Social Network Analysis. His scientific activity is situated at the intersection of computational social science, the analysis of digital platforms, and political communication, with a specific focus on understanding information disorders and coordinated behavior on social media. This foundational work underpins his critical contributions to understanding contemporary digital landscapes and their societal impacts.
He is the founder and coordinator of the Mapping Italian News Research Program (MINE), active at the University of Urbino since 2017. MINE serves as an institutional umbrella for his research line, exploring Italian media coverage and the influence of social media on electoral processes, public opinion, and health information through a succession of externally funded sub-projects. Within MINE, he 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 August 2024 shutdown of Meta's CrowdTangle, though its methodology continues to be applied, notably in the independently maintained CooRTweet R package.
Fabio has also played significant roles in European research initiatives. He served as WP4 Leader for the Horizon Europe project vera.ai, which concluded in October 2025, focusing on developing AI-based tools to counter disinformation. Additionally, he was a Partner on the PROMPT project, dedicated to monitoring disinformation narratives across Europe, which concluded in February 2026. While these externally funded MINE sub-projects have concluded, the MINE program itself remains active as the framework for his ongoing research, though currently without active external grants.
Beyond his institutional roles, Fabio is actively involved in the broader academic community. He is a member of the International Communication Association (ICA), the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), and the Italian Association for Political Communication. His commitment to scholarly engagement is further demonstrated by his service on the board of Research Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association. His current research interests extend to topics such as the application of large language models in political discourse, the analysis of social media data, and the sociotechnical imaginaries surrounding generative AI.
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., 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
Giglietto, F. (2025). The State of Social Media Research APIs & Tools in the Digital Service Act Era. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16269197
Giglietto, F. (2025). Manipolazione dei media ed influenza digitale. Sfide, tecnologie e risposte. .
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 moreNew research explores the burgeoning field of Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models (LLMs), focusing on their complex interactions with social theory, media, and political communication. Featured publications investigate the necessity of social theory as a structural prior for agentic AI systems, the framing of generative AI in news media, and how state media control influences LLMs. Additional studies analyze the sociotechnical imaginaries of generative AI across different national newspapers and the use of multimodal LLMs for visual political communication on platforms such as Instagram.
Read moreA recent collection of academic papers highlights critical issues surrounding online misinformation, extremism, and conspiracy theories. These studies delve into the alternative influence networks of far-right YouTubers, the relationship between extremist group discourse and offline activities, and how traditional media contribute to the spread of conspiracy beliefs, especially during events like the COVID-19 pandemic. Other research examines international expert assessments on challenges and interventions in digital misinformation, along with insights from climate psychology for understanding false narratives.
Read moreKey developments in social media platform dynamics, regulation, and research methodologies are highlighted in a series of academic papers. Topics cover the evolving landscape of public debate on platforms like Twitter and its potential decline, the strategies employed by micro-influencers to thrive within platform cultures, and the algorithmic transformation exemplified by TikTok's shift towards social interest clusters. Furthermore, new research addresses systematic reviews of social science studies utilizing social media data and the practical implications of regulations such as Article 40 of the Digital Services Act (DSA) for platform research.
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