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. His research operates at the intersection of computational social science, digital platform analysis, and political communication, with a particular focus on information disorders and coordinated social media behavior. In the classroom, he shares his expertise by teaching courses on Generative AI and Media as well as Digital Social Network Analysis. Through these academic endeavors, he explores how digital platforms shape modern society, public discourse, and the flow of information.
He is the founder and coordinator of the Mapping Italian News Research Program (MINE), an institutional research umbrella active since 2017. Under this framework, Giglietto has led a succession of externally funded sub-projects on elections, public opinion, and health information. Though all external grants have concluded, MINE continues to serve as the core hub for his ongoing research. His recent European contributions include serving as the Work Package 4 Leader for the Horizon Europe project vera.ai, which concluded in late 2025, and as a partner on the PROMPT project, which concluded in early 2026, both of which focused on countering disinformation and monitoring problematic online narratives.
As part of his methodological contributions, Giglietto co-developed CooRnet, an open-source R package that pioneered the Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior detection method used globally by researchers and investigative journalists. Following the shutdown of Meta's CrowdTangle in August 2024, CooRnet was formally discontinued at the operational level. However, the foundational methodology it introduced lives on in CooRTweet, an independent, downstream R package maintained by other scholars to detect coordinated behavior across modern platform APIs.
Beyond his primary research and teaching, Giglietto is highly active in the international academic community. He holds memberships in the International Communication Association, the Association of Internet Researchers, and the Italian Association for Political Communication, and has previously served on the board of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee 51 on Sociocybernetics. He is also a founding partner of Digit Srl, a benefit-corporation spin-off of the University of Urbino Carlo Bo. This venture focuses on developing innovative digital platforms dedicated to sustainability, civic participation, social innovation, and the broad dissemination of scientific knowledge.
Giglietto, F., Marino, G., Chakraborty, A., & Righetti, N. (2026). Ten months of continuous coordinated-behaviour monitoring on Facebook: the VERA-AI Alert system and its empirical yield. Center for Open Science. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/gba57_v1
Marino, G., Paroni, B., & Giglietto, F. (2026). Measuring partisan community dynamics: a longitudinal analysis of affective engagement in pro-Bolsonaro Facebook networks. Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2026.2696929
Giglietto, F. (2026). VERA-AI Alert: Self-updating detection of coordinated sharing behaviour on Facebook. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21234935
Giglietto, F., Graham, T., & Righetti, N. (2026). Navigating Coordination and Inauthentic Behaviour. The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003359524-24
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
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 moreFeatured in *Science Advances*, a landmark study investigates public exposure to untrustworthy information on Facebook and Instagram during the 2020 US election. The findings highlight that while exposure to partisan and untrustworthy sources remains highly concentrated among a small group of users, it has no measurable effects on political attitudes.
Read moreAs generative AI becomes more integrated into daily communication, a new investigation explores how audiences perceive automated content. The study evaluates the effectiveness of task-specific AI disclosures on audience trust, revealing complex perceptions that challenge simplistic transparency mandates.
Read moreA newly co-authored study published in *Information, Communication & Society* examines partisan community dynamics on social media. Utilizing longitudinal analysis, the research maps affective engagement within pro-Bolsonaro Facebook networks to reveal how emotional connections sustain political echo chambers over time.
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