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 earned his doctorate and now teaches Generative AI and Media and Digital Social Network Analysis. His scientific activity explores the intersection of computational social science, the analysis of digital platforms, and political communication. His research focuses specifically on understanding information disorders and coordinated behavior across social media, contributing significantly to the academic discourse on these critical contemporary issues.
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, having hosted a succession of externally funded sub-projects that investigated Italian media coverage and the impact of social media on electoral processes, public opinion, and health information. Within MINE, Fabio co-developed CooRnet, an open-source R package that introduced the influential Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior (CLSB) detection method. Following the shutdown of Meta's CrowdTangle in August 2024, CooRnet is now operationally discontinued; however, the CLSB methodology lives on through the independently maintained CooRTweet R package. While all externally funded MINE sub-projects have concluded, the program itself remains active.
On the European front, Fabio served as WP4 Leader for the Horizon Europe project vera.ai, which concluded in October 2025 after developing AI-based tools for countering disinformation. He also contributed as a Partner on PROMPT, a European Commission project dedicated to monitoring disinformation narratives, which concluded in February 2026. Professionally, Fabio is a member of the International Communication Association (ICA), the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), and the Italian Association for Political Communication. He has also actively participated on the board of Research Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics of the International Sociological Association.
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.
Learn more
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.
Learn more
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 moreRecent academic discussions highlighted in the field delve into the complex dynamics of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Key papers explore how individuals conduct symbolic boundary work within "Great Reset" debates on social media, analyze the hostile misinformation effect driven by ideological congruence, examine the media's contribution to disseminating conspiracy beliefs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and offer an international expert assessment of challenges and interventions in digital media.
Read moreImportant contributions to understanding the societal implications of Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models have been noted. This includes a discourse analysis of Google’s AI Overviews, a formal framework advocating for social theory as a structural prior for agentic AI, research mapping the sociotechnical imaginaries of generative AI in international newspapers, and the application of multimodal LLMs for analyzing visual political communication on Instagram.
Read moreNew scholarship in online extremism and political discourse has been shared, providing insights into various contemporary issues. Featured research includes an analysis of the alternative influence network of far-right YouTubers in Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic, an examination of the Proud Boys' online discourse and offline activities, studies on how Brazilian parliamentarians pursue epistemic authority in times of crisis, and explorations of protest movements contributing to the mainstreaming of radical ideologies.
Read more