“Quarto potere” dei media e “quinto potere” del pubblico: il caso del Covid-19
The "Fourth Estate" of the Press and the "Fifth Estate" of the Public: The Case of Covid-19

Summary/Abstract: Every day we hear, read, “click” news from different sources: news bulletins, radio, newspapers, blogs, posts and tweets. In my experience, however, I have learned that not all of these pieces of news are “completely true.” These, in fact, are transmitted by journalists who are influenced by the ideals, values and personal expectations of the society they belong to, like any individual who transmits a message in a communication process. The great power of those who controlled the media for years lay in the ability to make the public believe anything: the news of the state entering the war was as true as the news of an alien attack. With the advent of the Internet, the public has gained powers it never had before. By interacting with a screen, in fact, the web user can communicate with the journalists who wrote the articles, comment on the news published in open access, compare several journalistic publications and, above all, track the source of information used by the reporter for writing the article. Comparing articles on the topic of Covid-19 is an example of using this power. Only by comparison, in fact, can we observe the inconsistencies between journalistic sources and the effects they have on the reader.

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