H-ermes. Journal of Communication H-ermes, J. Comm. 17 (2020), 27-72 ISSN 2284-0753, DOI 10.1285/i22840753n17p27 http://siba-ese.unisalento.it #DistantiMaUniti: la comunicazione pubblica tra innovazioni e fragilità alla ricerca di una ridefinizione Franca Faccioli, Lucia D’Ambrosi, Gea Ducci, Alessandro Lovari ∗ #DistantButUnited. Searching for a redefinition: public sector communication between innovations and fragility. Over the last twenty years, profound transformations have affected public sector communication, changing and redefining its practices and tools, while influencing its research boundaries and trajectories. Communication function has shown innovative traits linked to the impact of Internet and social media, but it has also revealed its fragility when facing growing political interferences and resistances from organizational bureaucracies. The Covid-19 pandemic has represented a turning point for public sector communication. The latter has acquired new visibility in this emergency situation, and it has been forced to redefine consolidated communication models. In this scenario characterized by a general distrust toward institutions, public sector communication must recover credibility, guarantee transparency, correctness and timeliness in the dissemination of information. Starting from these considerations, this study on government communication in the context of Covid-19 investigates two aspects: the possibility that the emergency situation represents an opportunity to relaunch public sector communication as a service function, with particular regard to its digital dimensions; the reconstruction of the narration of the pandemic through government communication campaigns in the context of traditional and social media, highlighting contents styles and languages. Results underline the informative and service function of institutional communication, revealing in some phases innovations in languages and strategies. The alignment and synchronicity between different institutional voices and platforms, and the presence of an effective coordination, emerge during the lockdown while they become weaker in the following phase. This article suggests investing in permanent research on public communication to foster a more sophisticated use of campaigns and social media so as to nurture a constructive dialogue with citizens. Keywords: public sector communication, communication campaign, Covid-19, social media, crisis communication, institutional communication, engagement, communication strategies. Introduzione La pandemia di Covid-19 ha rappresentato un turning point per la comunicazione pubblica che ha acquisito una nuova visibilità nella situazione di emergenza, e si è trovata costretta ad affrontare la domanda se innovare le modalità di diffusione delle informazioni del problema virus e del suo impatto sociale, ridefinendo modelli consolidati di comunicazione. Nell’ultimo ventennio la comunicazione pubblica ha attraversato profonde trasformazioni che ne hanno modificato e ridefinito pratiche e strumenti, ma ∗ L’articolo è il frutto del confronto e della collaborazione continua fra gli autori; tuttavia Introduzione e par.1 sono da attribuire a Franca Faccioli (Sapienza Università di Roma), Lucia D’Ambrosi (Università di Macerata) e Alessandro Lovari (Università di Cagliari); par. 2 a Lucia D’Ambrosi e Gea Ducci (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo), par. 3 a Franca Faccioli e Lucia D’Ambrosi; par. 4 ad Alessandro Lovari; par. 5 e Conclusioni a Gea Ducci.