Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc ISSN: 2531-3975 Editor-in-Chief: Emiliana Mangone Between Infodemic and Pandemic: On-line Researches in the Time of COVID-19 G U E S T EDITORS GIUSEPPE M A I E L L O (UNIVERSITY OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION, CZECH REPUBLIC) GIUSEPPE M A S U L L O (UNIVERSITY OF SALERNO, ITALY) I N D I C E / C O N T E N T S EDITORIALE M A I E L L O , G . - Social and Individual Processes at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis, 117-122 S A G G I D E FALCO, C . C . & ROMEO, E . - Social Sciences Research Methods Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic. A PRISMA Systematic Review, 123-141 D l LlSIO, M . & TREZZA, D. - Digital Methods to Study (and Reduce) the Impact of Disinformation, 143-156 P A L M I E R I , F . , P A R O L A , J., S A L L U S T O PALM3ERO, M . & T O F A N I , R . - Diaries from Isolation. Digital Testimonials' Analysis During COVID-19 Emergency, 157-174 R A M A , I. - Tlie Coronavirus Conversation on Reddit: A Mixed Methods Approach, 175- 192 E S P E R I E N Z E E C O N F R O N T I C A R L E O , M . - Being a Subject Expert During Covid-Era: An Autoethnographic Experience, 193-200 S T A V O L O , A . & L U O N G O , A . - The Political Communication of Italia Viva on Instagram: From its Formation to the COVID-19 Emergency, 201-210 A D D E O , F . , FTJNZLANO, G . & P A D R I C E L L I , G . M . - Prohibitions, Pleasures, and Disasters: En-tering the Online "Red zone" as an Experience of Digital Dark Tourism in Time of COVID-19, 211-218 N O T E E C O M M E N T I C O P P O L A , M . & M A S U L L O , G . - The COVID-19 Pandemic through the Eyes ofItalian Young Hikikomori, 219-226 Editor-in-Chief Euiiliana Mangone Editorial Board Sid Abdellaoui (Universite de Lourraine, Fiance). Ivana Acocella (University of Florence. Italy), Catherine Adam (MCF Ensta Bretagne. France). Felice Addeo (University of Salerno. Italy). Sabato Aliberti (University of Salerno. Italy). Andrea Salvatore Antonio Barbieri (IRPPS-CNR of Rome. Italy). Valerio Belotti (University of Padova. Italy). Mohamed Bengueraa (CREAD. Algeria). Lucia Boccacm (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan. Italy). Carmelina Chiara Canta (University of Roma Tre, Italy). Folco Cimagalli (Lmnsa of Rome. Italy). Consuelo Corradi (Lumsa of Rome. Italy). Isabella Crespi (University of Macerata. Italy). Angelica De Sena (University of Buenos Aires - University de La Matanza. Argentine). Massimo Del Fomo (University of Salerno. Italy). Paolo Diana (University of Salerno. Italy). Fernando Jorge Afonso Diogo (Universidade dos Acores. Portugal). Pieipaolo Donati (University of Bologna. Italy). Stellamarina Donato (Lmnsa of Rome. Italy). Erminio Fonzo (University of Salerno. Italy). Michela Freddano (INVALSI. Italy). Bernard Gangloff (University of Rouen. France). Linda Gardelle (MCF Ensta Bretagne. France). Guido Gili (University of Molise. Italy). Estrella Gualda (Universidad de Huelva. Spain). Ratiba Hadj-Moussa (York University. Canada). Francesca Ieracitano (Accademia Costume & Moda of Rome. Italy). Pavel Krotov (Pitirim A. Sorokin Foundation. MA-USA). Peter Mayo (University of Malta. Malta). Giuseppe Moro (University of Ban. Italy). Euiiliana Mangone (University of Salerno. Italy). Giuseppe Masullo (University of Salerno. Italy). Nanta Novello Paglianti (Cimeos-Universite de Bourgogne. France). Paolo Parra Saiani (University of Genova. Italy). Lucia Picarella (Universidad Catolica de Colombia. Colombia). Andrea Pimi (University of Genoa. Italy). Francesco Phone (University of Napoli "Federico II". Italy). Juan Jose Prhnosich (Universidad de Lies de Febrero. Argentine). Giovamia Russo (University of Bologna. Italy). Stefano Scarcella Prandstaller (Sapienza University of Rome. Italy). Adrian Scribano (CONICET-University of Buenos Aires. Argentine). Michele Sorice (Luiss of Rome. Italy). Sandra Stanzani (University of Verona. Italy), Rosarma Tammaro (University of Salerno. Italy). Paolo Terenzi (University of Bologna. Italy). Mara Tognetti Bordogna (University of Napoli "Federico II". Italy). Rossella Trapanese (University of Salerno. Italy). Giovaima Fruda (University of Salenio. Italy). Giovamia Vicarelli (Marche University Polytechnic. Italy). Koji Yoshmo (Nagasaki Wesleyan University. Japan). Nikolay Zyuzev ("Pitirim Sorokm" Syktyvkar State University, Russian Federation). Editorial Staff Giulia Capacci. Copy editor (Indipendent Researcher - Scotland. UK) Francesca Cubeddu Social Media Manager (Roma Fre University. Italy) Paolo Rocca Comite Mascambmno. Editorial Manager (University of Salerno. Italy) © Universita degli Studi di Salerno. 2021 Via Giovanni Paolo II n. 132. 84084 Fisciano, Italy - Peer Reviewed Journal Social and Individual Processes at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis Giuseppe Maiello University of Finance and Administration. Czech Republic E-mail: 27773[at]mail.vsfs.cz Abstract The author presents eight studies carried out dining the global pandemic of coronaviras disease 2019 (COYTD-19) and focuses on different methodological issues to be addressed within the Digital Society and netnographic research. The studies are reported in a common context ranging from the individual experiences of researchers to the receipt of political propaganda in mass society through social media. Keywords: Social research methods. Autoethnography. Neurography. Big data. New data. Infodemic. COVID-19. Introduction The special issue of Cultura e Studi del Sociale under discussion was conceived as a conceptual continuation of the special issue issued in June 2021, which was also dedicated to sociological studies on the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the previous one, this issue also maintains absolute scientific neutrality derived not only from the authors' commitment to study and work, but also from the fact that unlike summer 2020. this past summer was not accompanied by the same optimism as the previous one, despite the extensive vaccination campaign. In a social situation where question marks are constant, for scholars and others as well, specific studies on aspects that have yet to be fully anayzed due to their precise link to life in the time of the pandemic represent a vety useful contribution to the science of interpersonal relationships in these tunes of extreme crisis and beyond. 1. From auto-ethnography to political dynamics at tlie time of tlie pandemic Speaking personally is always an act of courage, because authors not only lay themselves bare to the entire scientific community, but above all must observe themselves, a task that is not always easy. Apart from this, doing auto-ethnography at a tune of extreme crisis, such as that of the COVID-19 pandemic, could lead a scholar to emphasize his or her own emotional expression, forgetting the relationship with traditional forms of social investigation. We therefore will take into consideration Martina Carleo's precise description hi her work entitled Being a subject expert during Covid-Era: an outoethnogrophic experience., an analysis appropriate to the times and the situation. The author tries to find the right balance between Leon Anderson's Analytic Autoetlmography (2006) and Arthur Boclmer and Carolyn Ellis's Evocative Autoetlmography (2016). We can find a description that we all would like to see as limited to the terrible years 2020-2021, and which could serve to understand the Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc: 202L 6(1), Special pp. 117-122 ISSN: 2531-3975 Giuseppe Maieilo limits and positive elements of the so-called Didattica a distanza (Remote Learning), i.e. the more or less successful attempts to make normal what unfortunately was not. but probably will be for several years. Therefore, new possibilities of teacher-student interaction have opened that will be studied over the next few years not only in the sociological field, but also in the psychological, pedagogical, and IT fields. It is not necessary in sociology to be the first to address a new topic by applying methodologies used elsewhere. However, we believe that studying them can not only stimulate the cognitive potential of other subjects engaged in pedagogical and analytical activity, but can also contribute, over time, to a historical reconstruction of what happened in Italian universities during the pandemic of the years 2020-2021. The analysis of hidividual attitudes at the time of the pandemic is also addressed in an essay by Mariamia Coppola and Giuseppe Masullo. who deal with the very delicate issue of Italian hikikomori based on the finding that 'Today COVID-19 is pivotal for rethinking oneself: The Salerno authors tackle the issue of identity from the micro level of relationships between individuals and the "digital society" to using the now established methods of netnography to analyze a discussion group on Facebook of young hikikomori. Considering the close link between hikikomori and their families, since all then network activities are carried out in the space offered by the families themselves, we can also consider the essay a good practical example of netnography as well as a further contribution to contemporary studies of Sociology of the Family focused on the perspective of subjects with a tendency toward self-isolation.1 The question of how to cany out innovative research using so-called Big Data is discussed in our volume by Ciro Clemente De Falco and Emilia Romeo. The authors remind us that "it is important to point out that the data is not only 'big' but also 'new'" and that the distinction must always be made between digitized data that was originally collected in analog format and data arising directly "from user activity on the web" ("native digital data"). The analysis of this latter type of data in particular raises the question of what types of collection methodologies to use, given that not all traditional methodologies can be applied to "new data". The emphasis of some authors, such as ours, on the difficulties faced by independent researchers hi gaining access data produced by digital infrastructures will be particularly appreciated.' On these premises. De Falco and Romeo examine the case study of Italy at the time of the fust and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, identifying the main topics studied in social science regarding the pandemic and analyzing the use of digital data and techniques for empirical research in social science. The authors note that Italian researchers have focused mainly on the use of online questionnaires or have used methodologies excluding the use of the web. which offers the possibility of Hacking subjects' behavior. The authors rightly emphasize the limits of the use of questionnaires as a "non-intrusive" technique (see Clark & Purdon, 1995) and rightly point out that "big doesn't necessarily mean better". In my recent essay (Maiello. 2021) I show how addiction to role-playing games also massively affects the generation preceding the one studied by our authors, i.e. that of their parents. The positive function of RPGs, in the context of inter-family relations, was identified by the Polish scholar' Michal Mochocki(2021). ' The debate about the limits of big data particularly for scholars in the humanities and social sciences, presently much more focused on qualitative research, has centered in this field on so-called Digital Humanities. The discussion of the past and perspectives of this field of study was recently summarized in the volume edited by Lauren F. Klein and Matthew K. Gold (2019). On the same theme, with a more radical approach toward scientism, see James E. Dobson (2019). H E Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 117-122 ISSN: 2531-3975 Social and Individual Processes at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis A similar approach, this time focused not on the products of specialized researchers but on the "broadcasters of the 21st century'", is offered by Miriam Di Lisio and Domenico Trezza in then study presented here under the title The Fake News Pandemic. The theme is obviously intriguing because we talk a lot about fake news yet at the same time there is considerable confusion about the definition of the term. Our authors, therefore, in addition to trying to cany out a specific study on the possible application of digital methods for the sUidy of fake news, seek to impose order in the definitions of disinformation and misinformation with a mind to the ambiguity of the concept of fake news.4 The chances of success for an analysis of this type are obviously limited, "but needed", as confirmed by the authors themselves, and therefore we consider their research an invitation to proceed with caution in the sUidy of fake news in a period that is "highly infodemic".3 An innovative content analysis is presented by Federica Palmieri. Jessica Parola. Marco Sallusto Palmiero. and Roberta Tofani. where the impact of the pandemic on individuals and on society is analyzed in particular on vulnerable social elements, such as the homeless, the Roma people, and women victims of violence. The authors remain strictly within the bounds of qualitative research by constructing their analytical categories inductively (see Glaser-Strauss 1967) and using CAQDAS Nvivo on data collected from Facebook or Instagram. In order not to confine their research only to individual cases, the authors compared the data collected by the aforementioned social media platforms with those of some Italian newspapers, thus managing to create a coherent research framework where the individual experiences are directly related to the collective experiences in the period of the first wave of pandemic. It should also be emphasized that the authors of the research, in addition to detecting clusters predictable in a period of pandemic, such as anxiety, sadness, nostalgia, resignation, and similar; notice another protagonist of the quarantine, which especially in Italy seems to represent a scarcely known phenomenon: silence. We can therefore say that their choice to adhere to the principles of Grounded Theory will be useful to all who, basing themselves on the same principles, will look for data from below in the future, data that the study has made clearly available to the scientific community. A less classic theme in social studies, that of Virtual Dark Tourism, which is already examined today at the level of scientific publications and even monographs (see McDaniel. 2018). is addressed by Gabriella Punziano and Giuseppe Michele Padricelli. The places they studied are those most affected by the first wave of COVID-19 cases hi Italy, namely the towns of Codogno. Vo' Euganeo, and 9 other municipalities near the Lodi district. The netnographic analysis was not easy for our authors as the majority of Facebook groups that dealt with the life and It is an elegant albeit ironic style to define what Umberto Eco directly, perhaps somewhat brutally, called the "lesions of imbeciles" (Eco, 2015), i.e. "less erudite" active users of Twitter (and social media in aeneral). 4 We can only agree with the authors when they state that ': if two people with different ideas and opinions were asked to define fake news, they would most likely give two completely different answers, based, in fact, on their beliefs", (cfr. infra). ~ The word infodemic is a neologism created in 2003, in the middle of the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak, by the US journalist David J. Rothkopf. According to the original definition, infodemic means "few facts, mixed with fear, speculation, and rumor, amplified and relayed swiftly worldwide by modern information technologies, [which] have affected national and international economies, politics, and even security in ways that are utterly disproportionate with the root realities" (Rothkopf, 2003). Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 117-122 ISSN: 2531-3975 119 Giuseppe Maieilo emotions of the inhabitants of these municipalities are open only to residents of these areas. The authors have bypassed the barrier of distrust, probably created by the massive presence of journalists in search of sensations, and have managed to enter a world of suffering and pain deriving from the pandemic disaster and aggravated by the fact that the spaces studied were in fact the first in Europe to experience lockdown and death, which was present almost everywhere. In this case as well the researchers' choice was defined as an unobtrusive approach where the scholar tries to show his presence as little as possible in order not to pollute the study or the spontaneity of the written and visual expressions of the social media users. For the authors, it is also very important to understand a theoretical aspect already discussed in Tourism Studies, namely how a linking tourism experience is a genuine tourism experience. The sUidy of an extreme situation, such as that of the first red zone in Europe as a result of the pandemic, is able to provide further elements of understanding for the resolution of this question. Social Media, however, does not consist solely of Facebook and Twitter. Among those platforms of medium size, with numbers of users on a global scale slightly higher than that of Twitter (STATISTA, July 2021). we find Reddit, which is used and described in detail by Ilir Rama. Reddit was bom a little more than a year after Facebook and despite having sometimes been strongly criticized for hosting extremist groups in its rooms, defined as subreddits, it is considered a much more libertarian and substantially less hypocritical social media than Mark Zuckerberg's more famous one.6 Rama presents in a veiy sophisticated and open way. given his status as a "researcher embedded hi the environment", his method of considering affordances within the context of digital platforms based on his netiiographic research (defined as "ethnography in digital environments") on the subreddit named r/coronarirus. which hi May 2020 already had 2 million users. Despite the use of computational data drawn from 2.8 million comments, the topics were set manually through human interpretation. Even in this case we are faced with an analysis conducted with rigor and scientific awareness, supported also by an innovative theoretical apparatus and veiy useful considerations in particular on the use of social media, and the influence of these not only on the subjects who use it, but in general on all of society. Rama in fact points out that Reddit essentially creates a self-censorship mechanism in users through the so-called Karma system which "directly promotes a community's culture by punishing socially deviant expressions and promoting comments conforming to situated social nouns, building an intersubjective meaning." Everything is presented in a veiy open way and not managed by algorithms elaborated in a centralistic and non-transparent way as in the case of Facebook. If sociology today, such as antliropology. is not afraid to consider even the researcher himself an object of study, or at least a participant observer, there are still fields in which the researcher remains distant and imperceptible. This is the case of political sociology, which now goes hand in hand with political marketing and media communication. And yet the researcher, unless she herself is part of a team of marketers or the restricted secretary of a political party, must rebuild from the outside, and only on the basis of the public demonstrations of the party itself In the January issue of The Journal of Politics, after analyzing Facebook groups and their enormous capability to manipulate a specific audience, Jennifer Forestal recommends Reddit as a digital platform more conducive to democratic forms of discussion and collective organization (Forestal. 2021, p. 320). 120 Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 117-122 ISSN: 2531-3975 Social and Individual Processes at the Time of the COVID-19 Crisis and the likely strategies that the studied political party implements to obtain its results, whether positive or negative. On this basis two young Neapolitan researchers. Agostmo Stavolo and Assunta Luongo, focus in the section Esperienze e confront! (Experiences and Comparisons) on an Italian political party that appeared on the public scene of this country hi September 2019. i.e. a fewr weeks before the outbreak of COVID-19: Italia Viva. Our authors Try to identify the differences hi communication through Instagram by this party during the period preceding and coinciding with the first wr ave of pandemic in Italy. Their experience is based on the one hand by suggestions offered by the "communication strategists" of the party studied, but also on the first studies that appeared in Italy on political communication at the tune of the pandemic (see Boccia Artieri. 2020: Bordignon. Diamanti & Turato. 2020). In a simple but outstanding study, the young scholars remind us of the need for the researcher to be ready to accept empirical results that cannot be predicted a priori and that it is ahvays possible to find traces of outdated and vulgar techniques of manipulation, as well as the reproduction of gender stereotypes, even hi political parties enjoying respect hi the liberal and partly libertarian global community. Conclusions If epidemiologists had to deal with the pandemic in the years 2020-2021. someone could accuse social studies scholars of dealing too much with infodemic. In its original meaning, however, this would sound more like exaggeration of data and information compared to a real biological danger, rather than an inflation of data, information, and - soon, we wr ould add - studies. But research is never enough. And even if confined within the four walls that the pandemic has long forced us, we always consider research a ^wonderful adventure" (cf. Engels. 1877). aimed at placing the pieces of tile and bricks on the edifice of scientific knowledge. One such brick is the special issue wr e present here. References Anderson. L. (2006). Analytic Autoetlmography. Journal of Contemporan' Ethnography 35(4), pp. 373-305. Boccia Artieri G. (2020). A Voce Alta. Pandemic politics: mi miovo campo discorsivo per la ricerca sulla politica. Comunicazionepolitico 3, pp. 443-449. Bochner A. P.. & Ellis. C. (2016). Erocatire Autoethnography: Writing Lives and Telling Stories. London. Routledge. Bordignon E. Diamanti I. & Turato F. (2020/ II contagio delle opinioui. Cittadini e democrazia ai tempi del Coronavirus, Comunicazionepolitica 3. pp. 389-418. Clark. D.A.. & Purdon. C.L. (1995). The assessment of unwanted intrusive thoughts: A review and critique of the literature. Behaviour Research and Therapy 33(8): 967-976. Dobson. JE. (2019). Critical Digital Humanities: The Search for a Methodology: Champain. University of Illinois Press. Eco, U. (2015). / social danno voce ad un mare di imbecilW.!, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkzw6vm8651. Youtube.com. 10 giugno 2015. Engels, F. (1877). Herrn Eugen Diihring's Uimvalzung der Wissenschaft, Leipzig. Genossenschafts-Buchdruckerei. Forestal. J. (2021). Beyond Gatekeeping: Propaganda. Democracy, and the Organization of Digital Publics, The Journal ofPolitics 83(1): pp. 306-320. Gold. M. K., & Klein. L. F. (2019). Debates in the Digital Humanities 2019. Minneapolis. University Of Minnesota Press. Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc: 202 L 6(1), Special pp. 117-122 ISSN: 2531-3975 121 Giuseppe Maiella Maiello. G. (2021). National Differences and Gender Stereotypes in Days of Empire. In G. Pimziano & A. Delli Paoli (Eds.). Handbook of Research on Advanced Research Methodologiesfor a Digital Society. Hershey. IGI Global: 788-799. McDaniel. K.N. (2018). Virtual Dark Tourism. Ghost Roads. Cham. Springer. Mocliocki. M. (2021). Role-play as a Heritage Practic. Historical Larp, Tabletop RPG and Reenactment. London. Routledge. Rothkopf. D.J. (2003). When the Buzz Bites Back, The. Washington Post, May 11. 2003. STATISTA (2021). Most popular social networks worldwide as of July 2021, ranked by number of active users. littps://\\ww.sratista.coni/statistics/272014/ global-social- nerworks-ranked-by-mimber-of-tisers/ 122 Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 117-122 ISSN: 2531-3975 Social Sciences Research Methods Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic. A PRISMA Systematic Review Ciro demente De Falco & Emilia Romeo University of Naples Federico II. Italy - * University of Salerno. Italy E-mail: defalcociro[at]live.it - eromeo[at]imisa.it Abstract In the digital society, the traditional methods of social research for the study of society have been accompanied by innovative methodological proposals: digital and digitized methods . which are now applied to many themes. In 2020 the most debated topic was certainly the one concerning the Covid-19 pandemic; a "total social fact" of which not only the medical aspects have been analyzed, a substantial scientific production, indeed, has concerned the impacts that the pandemic itself and the measures that governments have taken to resist it has had on society. Starting from these considerations, the aim of this work is to offer an overview of the topics analyzed and the research methods used to investigate this disruptive event in academic research concerning the social sciences - and in particular that which focused on the Italian case - during the last year. To map the state of the art. consolidate the heterogeneous corpus of knowledge, and investigate the different methodological approaches used (tradition'digital/digitized) a methodological approach was applied based on a systematic review of the literature conducted with the PRISMA method and carried out with a third type content analysis. Keywords: Covid-19. Digital/digitized methods. Sistematic Literature Review. SLR, Big data. 1. Introduction: new way to study the society. In the contemporary society, data are constantly produced as direct and indirect effects of human activities. Self-tracking with wearable devices, social media posting, mobile phone interactions, are only an example of data produced evety day by billions of people. This "data deluge" (Harford et al.. 2013) is commonly known as "Big data" (Kitchin. 2014). It is possible to categorize big data in different ways (Kitchin. 2014; Elias. 2012) but it is known that the biggest part is produced in digital ambient (Lupton.2015). For this reason, digital data are becoming significant sources for managing crises (e.g.. tool of social media monitoring) but also to sftidy phenomena that regard the society. For researchers now it is possible to obtain a large amount of information that previously was inaccessible. Due to Big data, it is possible to carry out "non-intrusive" investigations in "natural" contexts, avoiding distortion linked to the researcheľ/interviewer/observeťs presence (Mahrt - Scharkow, 2013). Social scientists usually use digital media data (Rice, 1990) but now it is possible to obtain tons of data from multiple tool that retrieved information fi'om different web sources like scraping: application programming interface (API); programs and websites designed to collect trace data and custom applications and computer scripts (Hampton, 2017). It is important to point out that data are not only "big" but also "new". Rogers (2013). indeed, distinguishes from "digitized data" and "native digital data". The first refers to objects that already existed in analogic Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 Giro elemente De Falco & Emilia Romeo form and that was then digitized (e.g.. films, documents, books, etc.). while native digital objects are made from user activity on the web. New and big data not only requires increased computational power but also new analysis' techniques in addition to traditional techniques. Rogers (2013). in this regard, distinguishes between digital methods and digitized methods. Digital methods are an ensemble of strategy and research approaches that use data retrieved from digital environments to study socio-cultural phenomena and changes (Rogers. 2009. Caliandro and Gandini. 2016); while "digitized methods" are traditional social research tools adapted to the web (Rogers, 2009). Both methods have strengths and weaknesses (Hampton. 2017) but allows researchers to retrieve knowledge from new and big data. What is still under discussion is the extent of these data and the generalizability of them results, for example is not clear if the study of the twitter data can help researchers to understand the dynamics that characterize the social network Twitter, or the dynamics of Twitter in-social-life (Marres, 2012). Furthermore, using new and big data or new methods can be difficult for several reasons. First of all. the accessibility to all data is not guaranteed, for example, due to the growing trend towards "proprietary closure" (Manovich. 2012) is difficult to access to data produced by digital infrastructures. Companies have access to large data sets, while researchers can obtain part of these. Secondly is not always easy for social scientists to collect, store and analyze massive quantities of data. For this reason. Lupton (2015) - as many others - highlights the importance for the new generation of social scientists to improve technical background and to work in interdisciplinary groups. Finally, resistance regarding the "ontological" level could hinder the use of digital data. Another typical challenge associated with high-volume, diverse datasets is whether synthesis of data streams can be translated into actionable knowledge. The concept of translating "big data to knowledge" is important to the social sciences in several respects, big data is now being used in a variety of fields: from economics to science and politics. Governments all over the world, for example, could use big data to monitor and manage their territories through Event Detection algorithms (Mellin and Berndtsson. 2009). This kind of algorithm is becoming increasingly popular in the context of Smart cities (Borges et al., 2017) and especially in emergency management (Pohl et al.. 2012). An important example of this kind of uses can be seen in the data collection from tweets during natural disasters such as Sandy (Wang et al.. 2015). In addition to the purely managerial side, big data can be used as knowledge source to better understand the socio-economic dynamics and phenomena that arise from emergencies. This general shift to data-intensive science will exert an influence on all scientific disciplines, but particularly on the social sciences given the wealth of behavior and related constructs captured by big data sources. Starting from the consideration of the covid-19 pandemic as an exogenous shock similar to a natural disaster the aim of this study is highlight, in the first place, the different kinds of research conducted in social sciences field regarding Covid-19. Moreover, given the challenging period and the importance of "social distance" between people and the "lockdown" restrictions carried on most of the research was conducted online. So, from a methodological point of view, it is interesting to understand in which way online research was carried out. Have digitized methods or digital methods been used? Have the new data sources been exploited? Besides providing an idea of the current level of implementation of digital methods and the use of big data in the current social research, answering these questions will allow us to understand, from a practical point of view, how we could consider constantly monitoring the evolution of socio-economic phenomena during emergencies and whether the tools currently used can be defined as effective. 1.4 Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021. 6(1): Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 Social Sciences Research Methods Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic. A PRISMA Systematic Review The study is organized as follows. First, an overview of the diffusion of Sarscov2 in Italy. Then, the methodology based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA. Moher et al., 2009) model is presented. In the following sections, the results of the analysis are reported and discussed by identifying: 1) the main themes discussed in social research: 2) the use of digitized, digital, or traditional methods in empirical research during the pandemic: 3) the level of exploitation of big data in empirical social research. Finally, implications, conclusion and limitations of the work are debated. 2. Defining the issue. Covid-19 pandemic: the Italian case A total social fact according to Marcel Mauss (2002) is something capable of influencing and determining a set of phenomena involving most of the functioning mechanisms of the reference community. The total social fact. thus, would allow the interpretation of apparently distant and different "pieces" of the same society. Today, the coronavirus performs the same function. Social norms, inequalities, culture and political polarization are the main things (but not the only) that have been affected and influenced, even in a radical way. In particular, Italy represents a case of interest as it is one of the fust countries to register one of the highest numbers of infected in the world and it is also among the first to respond positively to the pandemic trying to implement measures to counter the spread of the vims, or at least to limit it as much as possible. On January 31 st, 2020, a state of health emergency was declared due to the new coronavirus epidemic. The decision was made immediately after the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern. The fust two Covid-19 cases were confirmed in Italy in February 2020. and. by the end of the month, the vims had spread over northern regions of the country. On February 23rd. the Government issued a decree aimed at preventing and combating further transmission of the vims but during March, the toll of new cases and deaths kept surging, rapidly over- taking the numbers registered in China and making Italy the hardest-hit country in Europe and one of the epicenters of the global pandemic. The rides decided by the government to counter the spread of the virus initially included the total schools1 closure, restrictions on people's mobility and the obligation for people not to leave their home for a month: while for the commercial activities two weeks of suspension, but then an extension of the measures was deemed necessary restrictive (Briscese et al. 2020). Until March 21st. 2020. the number of cases is multiplied, reaching the peak with a very steep curve. Then, from March 21st to May 3rd. in 43 days, the curve decreased slowly. On May 4th the second phase began with the opening of some kind of activities and with the possibility for citizens to freely move according to safety conditions. Since May 18th. the number of infected people has continued to decline and the government has ordered the reopening of most activities and the possibility, for the people, to move between regions and in Schengen countries. Sadly, the perhaps hasty reopening that involved the country, mostly in order to support a gradual revival of the economy severely affected by the period of forced lockdown, has exposed Italy to the severe consequences - still in progress - of a second wave with bigger numbers of infected than the fust one. The 4t h of November, in fact, due to the increasing number of infections, following a new decree of Italian Prime minister the country has been divided into three areas (e.g. red. orange and yellow) according to risk profiles that take into account the evolution of the epidemic with weekly updates. The classification system according to the risk scenario of each Region in "red", "orange" and Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 125 Giro elemente De Falco & Emilia Romeo "yellow" leads to specific restrictive measures according to the color. The red is the most serious, followed by the orange and then the yellow. So, due to Covid-19 lockdown. our lives, by now, were projected in the network, that, according to Boccia Aitieri (2015), has become "a place of the society". Job. education, shopping and other different activities, in this period, have been transferred to the digital world, representing a turning point for social research. Hence, this event, from a social researcher perspective can be seen as an opportunity to exploit the advantages related to big data and computational techniques related to the digital world. According to Pitrelli (2017) automated methods of information extraction, analysis of social networks applied to the Internet, use of computational models to understand how individuals interact with each other, augmented reality, geospatial analyses have gained an increasingly significant space in multiple fields of application, therefore becomes interesting to understand how much these advances have been exploited in social research. 3. Methodology In order to provide an overview of the covered topics and the adopted methods and sources to investigate the phenomena - directly and indirectly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictive measures - a systematic literature review based on content analysis is performed. The review presents two main objectives: 1) identify the main topics studied: 2) analyze the use of digital data and techniques for empirical research in social science. The systematic literature review has been earned out during a temporal range that goes from November to December 2020 by two researchers from two Italian universities - the University of Naples "Federico II" and the University of Salerno according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) methodology (Moher et al., 2009). Moreover, thanks to a well-defined process in four steps. PRISMA ensures a strict review plan, offering methodological accuracy, transparency, and the possibility to easily replicate the research (Tranfield et al.. 2003). PRISMA comprises four steps - identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion - to perform the SLR (Moher et al.. 2009), as described below and in Figure 1. 3.1 Data collection Dining the first step, known as the identification phase, to properly cover the issue Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) database have been used for the paper research according to then extensiveness and relevance in social sciences. To obtain the most relevant literature in databases, the choice of keywords fell on "covid*19", "coronavims". "Italy" and "Italian". The keywords have been connected with the Boolean operator "AND" and "OR". Thus, the following search string has been defined: (("coronavims" OR "covid*19") AND ("Italy" OR "Italian")). The search produced 4,482 articles. To complete this step, after entering the search strings, inclusion and exclusion criteria were set to obtain the relevant literature in the chosen databases. 126 Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 Social Sciences Research Methods Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic. A PRISMA. Systematic Review As shown hi Table 1. works published between 2020 and 20211 were selected because this period indicates the arise and developing of Covid-19 emergence in Italy. Table 1. The process of data collection Database Kevwords Records Scopus TITLE -A B S- K E Y (("corona virus7 ' OR : 'covid*19") A N D ("Italian" OR'Italy")) 3,304 WOS TOPIC (("coronavirus" OR "covid*19") A N D ("Italian" ORTtaly")) 1,178 Legend: ABS=: Abstract: K E Y = Keywords Regarding the type of document, as reported in Table 2. reviews, editorial book chapters and working papers were excluded, while articles published in international and national peer-reviewed journals, conference papers and "in press" papers (in English or Italian languages) belonging to a specific research fields were included in the analysis. Thus, the related research areas that belong to the research domain of social science were considered for both databases, excluding disciplines as neuroscience, pharmacology, and medicine. It is important to highlight that a minimum number of citations were not included because of the novelty of the topic under study. Table 2. Inclusion criteria Criteria Description Document International and national peer-reviewed journal articles; conference paper; in press type articles Lanauaae Enalisn or Italian Research Social Science Domain Research For Scopus: Anthropology: Area Studies; Psychology: Behavioral Sciences; PhysiolAreas ogy; Demography: Sociology; International Relations; Environmental Sciences Ecology; Development Studies; Family Studies: Communication; Social Work: Business Economics; Social Issues: Education Educational Research; Women Apos S Studies: Women S Studies; Ethnic Studies; Film Radio Television; Linguistics; Geography: Cultural Studies; Urban Studies: Sport Sciences: Social Sciences: Other Topics For WOS: Film Radio Television: Public Environmental Occupational Health: Geography; Nutrition Dietetics; Psychology: Behavioral Sciences: Education Educational Research: Demography; Environmental Sciences Ecology: Sociology; Family Studies; Cultural Studies: Women Apos S Studies; International Relations: Social Sciences Other Topics: History: Social Issues; Public Administration: Criminology Penology: Business Economics; Ethnic Studies; Linguistics: Communication; Philosophy: Anthropology: Women S Studies: Architecture: Telecommunications; Urban Studies; Area Studies Timeline 2020-2021 As synthesized in Figure 1. in the step of identification 3,558 articles were deleted. 323 of the 924 records from Scopus and WOS resulted duplicates and thereby were rejected. On this basis, 601 records were screened. Then, in the screening phase, based on the reading of 601 abstracts. 218 papers were deleted, because of their 2021 is the year of publication of some works included in the analysis. Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 127 Giro elemente De Falco & Emilia Romeo low pertinence to research aims and review objectives. Thus, after the reading of the full texts of all 383 remaining articles. 164 publications were included in the review process because, dealing with the empirical investigation of social impact of covid-19. they contribute to answering the review questions. Moreover, according to Robinson and Lowe (2015). who recommended the inclusion of 10-50 papers for a SLR. the number of papers included seems to be widely acceptable. Figure 1. The assessment and selection of contributions: PRISMA, flow diagram throurii Scopic 198 Kecat tbiotntcfiid ttrouefc '\Veb o f Science 726 924 Reauk ^created aaad ant tle má ibisu 601 RŕtauLexcludedliter Full'test art ideí azKsed for eliability H E Q - Sti 1000K 2 1 100 143 100 5. Discussion and research agenda The SLR highlighted what are the different fields of society on which the Covid-19 pandemic impacted and how the social research investigated these phenomena and their consequences. Covid-19 pandemic, in fact, affected countries and people all over the world - and in particular Italy - in all their core activities, above all relational, economical, and educative. The content analysis performed suggested a series of theoretical-conceptual results through both the keywords' co-occurrence analysis (see Figure 2 and Table 3) and the collected data on research methods used. From the thematic analysis, nine clusters in which social research has been most focused could be identified. These clusters deal with different themes such as communication flows and fake news; pandemic's psychological effects and changes in the population; the impact on the educational world; social media both as the main discussion forum about pandemic-related topics and as a social infrastructure; lifestyle changes during lockdown (e.g., eating habits); consumer behavior, the role of institutions during the pandemic and the socio-economic effects this has had on the population. Considering these clusters as a starting point, four macro-areas had been derived then (see Figure 3): 1) information and communication area; 2) psychological and behavioural area; 3) economical-institutional area; 4) educational area. As seen from the thematic analysis, many topics were analyzed using online survey as one of the main methods of study. The analysis of the techniques and tools showed that a substantial amount of these works used one of the classic tools of social research hi his online version: the questionnaire. On one hand, this is a confirmation of its usefulness and flexibility, on the other hand, it is possible to identify at least two critical elements related to the use of this tool for online research. In the first place the type of information collected by the questionnaire - the main tool of standard social research - is already established upstream, deleting the possibility of identifying emerging or. however, not taken into consideration aspects of an analyzed phenomenon. Studies conducted on Twitter, for example, allow the researcher to broadly explore the semantic field of a given phenomenon. In second place, more generally, the default use of the questionnaire for online research precludes the possibility of exploiting the potential of the web. such as the possibility of studying subjects' behavior by collecting traces of their activities. Notwithstanding that the questionnaire is not an outdated or useless tool, because it often allows to obtain detailed information on a given phenomenon. However, it seems clear that in some cases it became possible to obtain information on a pheCultiire e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 135 Giro Glemente De Falco & Emilia Romeo nonienon without resorting to intrusive techniques such as the questionnaire, but simply collecting data from the traces left by subjects during their activities on the web. Figure 3. Clusters grouped into four macro-areas This process would also allow the collection of a more consistent amount of data, while, as seen in the sample of articles analyzed, most of the works presented fairly limited datasets. Clearly big does not mean necessarily better, considering that one of the limitations of big data is related to the fact that their use does not allow any form of generalization, however it should be emphasized that also results deriving from data collected through an online questionnaire cannot allow any generalization. Large datasets are not the only potential that web research offers, for example the online experiment, as demonstrated in research, can be a successfully tool to study some phenomena. Combining different strategies for detecting information, indeed, could also be useful, as widely emphasized in the research that use mixed methods. In the study, just 7 % of articles analyzed used multiple tools and sources. From the results of the analysis emerges that most research were conducted through the web and social networks, but considering the period, this was an expected result. A n interesting result to discuss is the fact that betweeii "digital" and "digitized" research there has been a strong propensity for the second type, taking into the account the fact that the analysis' results are certainly partial, since many papers that will be published shortly not have been considered. It can also be assumed that what emerged from the analysis is due to the fact that research conducted with digital tools needs more time to be concluded. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that, considering the unpredictability of the phenomenon, the importance of setting up research in a short time has led the research groups to apply and use known and well-tested tools. From this point of view, although used, the "digital" tools would not yet be part of the standard instrumentation of the research groups, not solely due to theoretical resistances towards digital but for the costs that the implementation of these particular ways of doing research might have. The new "degree", "masters" and "Ph.D" courses have trained social scien- 136 Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 Social Sciences Research Methods Regarding COVID-19 Pandemic. A PRISMA Systematic Review tists with remarkable teclmical skills, but like any other human enterprise (Lakatos. 1970) it can be difficult, at the moment, to implement new research procedures within groups. So. beyond the theoretical questions, doing deeply research on digital big data requires new expertise and it has a cost both in an economical terms and time. Cost that not every research group can or want to sustain. Thus, both the thematic analysis and the analysis of the techniques and tools of the social research literature that focuses on Covid-19 pandemic led to the identification of some gaps and future research directions. Research direction I: Computational fact-checking Being the first full-scale global pandemic of the digital age. Covid-19 has presented novel challenges to governments such as the spread of news and misinformation. The review shed light on the necessity of accurate information to avoid the spread of misinformation. Thus, the future research should focus on developing mechanisms of computational fact-checking for identifying the fake news topics that can arise during times of crisis, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. In a period of uncertainty and almost constantly changing news, in fact, fact-checking provides a service by clarifying the assessment of a claim and also delivering context and background information. Research direction 2: Increase ofmulti- and inter-disciplinarity The social research on Sars-Cov-2 through big data is dynamic and has developed along fragmented disciplinary lines. In particular, the review, through the analysis of existing works, has shown a need of interconnections among different fields of knowledge (Emani. Cullot & Nicolle, 2015), for better manage the topic by looking at the totality of the phenomenon. Research direction 3: Increase use of geo-located data Big data analytics definitely lead to valuable knowledge in many domains. The disaster management, for example, could benefit from it as there are many realtune information, which is available from official and non-official sources (e.g., wireless sensor networks. Internet-based systems, etc.). Thus, through the review emerges the need for more studies that investigate the potential of geo-tagged data in the disaster management (Chen et al.. 2016: Chatfield and Brajawidagda. 2013). Conclusion Theoretical and Practical Implications This paper provides a synthesis of the current conceptual and empirical literature on the disruptive phenomenon of Covid-19 pandemic hi Italy. A first theoretical contribution of this study pertains to the identification of the current state of the art of the Covid-19 related topics, and the way these issues have been investigated by social scientists. Another implication of the review lies hi the hannonisation of the existing knowledge in four macro-areas that underlines which are the main stressed topics in literature. Then, drawing the attention to one unique and valuable source like big data is, this paper tries to demonstrate the opportunities that they provide to social scientists, highlighting how these data and methods can be used to benefit social science research. However, the final conceptual contribution of the Culture e Studi del Sociale-CuSSoc, 2021, 6(1), Special, pp. 123-141 ISSN: 2531-3975 137 Giro elemente De Falco & Emilia Romeo paper rests in the identification of specific gaps in the Covid-19 pandemic literature that led to the description of three directions for fnUire research in social sciences. Regarding the practical implications, this study can contribute to a general understanding of the phenomenon for policymakers who wants to address better future emergencies, especially suggesting through the future research directions, what kind of methodologies should put hi practise to avoid mistakes. For example, the review identified a major concern relates to Covid-19 pandemic into misinformation that can have drastic health care consequences, particularly the misinformation surrounding vaccines, is a significant obstacle in overcoming Covid-19 (Carried et al.. 2019). So, an important role for public health organizations and governments in providing accessible online information and refutation of misinformation is highlighted. The presentation of accurate information is a moral imperative for scientists, public health authorities, and governments to safeguard the truth and maintain an accessible discourse with the public opinion to limit fear and to safeguard public safety. Therefore, in line with the future research directions highlighted above, policymakers should invest more in the development and integration of digited methods to exploit most of the cognitive power of big data in every aspect: from quality public information to disaster management and clearly to social research. Limitations and Further Research Despite the value of the findings presented here, the paper has some limitations. 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