Insecurity is one of the main sentiments that currently shape social behaviour. However, defining what is insecurity proves difficult. A set of factors contribute to its perception, including the economy, the labour market, global conflicts, health hazards. Over the most recent years, insecurity has been deeply intertwined to small-scale crime. The Osservatorio analyses media communication on this issue as well as public opinion perceptions in a panel of EU countries (Italy, the United Kingdom, France and Spain).
The projects
The European Observatory on Security
In 2010, the Unipolis Foundation, Demos & Pi and the Osservatorio di Pavia created the European Observatory on Security, with the specific intent of making permanent the investigations and reflections on security, further developing on a continental scale the experience gained during three years of collaboration in the implementation of the report “Safety in Italy: meanings, image and reality”. Through periodic reports, the Observatory continuously analyses the relationship between the media representation of (in)security and its perception in public opinion and reality in Italy and in the main European countries. In particular, it reconstructs the attitudes of Italians towards security by framing them in the European landscape; it defines the “classification of fears” of citizens with regard to the different problems and risks they face; and it deepens through the analysis of the main communication tools – the news – the relevance with which the issues of insecurity are treated, thus defining the index of anxiety news.