Gender Digital Violence - Study, Design and Communication of an Awareness-Raising Campaign from University to University

This article aims to be a reflection, an analysis and a return to the reader of the path of conception and implementation of a communication campaign against gender violence. The project has been developed at the Inter- University Research Centre “Gender Cultures” in Milan, and wants to contribute and to give substance to the Istanbul Convention, which in its article 13 states that “to promote or implement awareness campaigns or programs (…) to increase awareness and understanding by the general public of the various manifestations of all forms of violence (…) as well as the need to prevent them”. To this end, three Italian and Milanese universities have been involved and a specific methodology has been used that has highlighted, from a communicative point of view, some important innovations. A group of university students, previously trained, carried out the creative work for the awareness campaigns by dividing themselves into subgroups and structuring a campaign in which the language was completely internal to the subculture of reference. Not only because the social segment to which the communication producers belonged was in fact homogeneous in terms of lifestyles, beliefs and/or worldview to the social and cultural segment of the campaign’s target, but also because they were inspired by tales of violence experienced by other students at the Milanese universities. Another element of solid novelty concerns the field research carried out with neuromarketing techniques on a representative and very small sample of the reference universe.