Purpose: Covid-19 is a worldwide pandemic disease that changed the government communication to citizens about the health emergency. This study aims to provide in-depth research about regional Italian government communication through social media (SM) and its effects on citizens' engagement.Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a case analysis, focusing on the Italian context. In detail, the authors analyse the more involved Italian regions in Covid-19 pandemic (Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany) applying the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model.Findings: The results reveal that SM is a powerful tool for communication during a health emergency and for facilitating the engagement with stakeholders. However, results also highlight a different perception about the timing of the Covid-19 crisis.Practical implications: Findings suggest a gap between the answer of the public government compared to the citizens' needs that are clear since the first earlier stage of the pandemic event. The engagement level is very high since the first phase of the pandemic event; however, to be adequately developed, it requires specific and timing information that are not always in line with the citizens’ communication needs.Originality/value: This is the first research that aims to study the citizens' engagement in the Italian regions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nowadays, universities play a pivotal role in building a more sustainable society, promoting sustainable development by reducing the negative impacts of their activities. Accordingly, universities have been incorporating sustainability into the different dimension of their activities (i.e., campus operations, research, teaching, and community engagement). Against this backdrop, the active involvement of stakeholders is a critical element, and, in this regard, social media platforms are particularly well-suited tools thanks to their inherent dialogic features. While there are several studies on the implementation of sustainability within university activities, only a few previous researches explore whether and how such institutions use social media platforms (SM) to disclose their green initiatives and engage users. Based on this, our paper aims to fill the literature gap by exploring the case of the University of Florence. To achieve this aim, we performed a content analysis of the posts published by the university on Facebook. In contrast with prior studies which found scarce use of SM to share green activities in the higher education sector, our findings reveal that the University of Florence has been using SM to disclose their sustainability initiatives. Moreover, our results suggest that most posts are related to the community engagement dimension, while previous research pointed out prevalent attention to the environmental aspect. Finally, this research reveals a low interaction level between the university and its followers, which greatly hampers the dialogic potential of social platforms themselves.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse the brand communication on social media (SM) made by two- and three-starred restaurants and the customer reaction in terms of engagement effects during a crisis. The research highlights the connections between brand communication and engagement dynamics on Instagram by looking for differences in the strategies of two and three-starred restaurants and by highlighting the changes in the background engagement drivers.Design/methodology/approach: Using data collected from 5,666 Instagram posts by 34 Italian Michelin-starred restaurants, the authors analysed the crisis-driven changes in online communication and customer engagement comparing three phases of the COVID-19 pandemic by applying a linear regression model with fixed effects.Findings: Michelin-starred restaurants changed their strategies of brand communication to overcome the effects of the crisis. The findings highlight the importance of SM as a tool to stay in touch with consumers and the pivotal role of customers in engagement, especially during a pandemic.Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first studies to investigate the changes in brand communication and the effects on customer engagement during a pandemic, with a focus on Instagram. It contributes to understanding the role of platform and the main drivers of engagement on Instagram, as well as suggesting how managers can improve brand value using SM.

Museums are increasingly using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the other social media to communicate their activities and exhibitions, organise projects and debates, build and sustain communities of visitors. Moreover, one of the increasing use of social media is the engagement of actual and potential visitors. However, considering the novelty of the theme, the literature seems to be scarce and this finding suggests the necessity to study more-in-depth the use of social media in museums. Hence, the research aim is to study the use of social media for visitor engagement considering the case of Italian museums. The results show that, despite the increasing use and popularity in social media, the level of engagement in Italian museums is quite absent. Consequently, while Italian museums are very popular and well-known on social media, they are not able to use them for visitor engagement.

Community collaboration and participation are necessary to strengthen the effectiveness of tourism policy. This article aims to examine the tourism planning activity of public administration in fostering a collaborative approach. The article contributes to the debate on collaborative approach in tourism from the perspective of public administration. The research uses a case study and examines how Tuscany region applies a collaborative tourism planning approach using the Habermasian framework. Results underline the fundamental role of local government can be strengthened by an extensive stakeholder engagement process able to encourage broad representation and trust of stakeholder interest about public policies. Moreover, the collaborative approach by mixing the different point of view of stakeholders, produces a range of positive outcomes and increases the efficacy of tourism policies. However, the realization of the “ideal speech situation” is very difficult and may be undermined by the threatens highlighted in the study, such as the lack of financial resources, the claim to more homogeneous policies to increase tourism trends, the need to improve trust and collaboration between public and private, the difficulties in maintaining high level of attention and the widespread scepticism about the capability of public entities to understand priorities in defining tourism policies.