Wiki leaks e il ruolo dei media nella società dell’informazione eccessiva

Wikileaks  settles in a communication landscape dominated by web 2.0: anybody may offer information in a reflexive modernity where nothing is taken for granted anymore, and where the power reveals its vulnerabilities and its deep crisis of legitimacy. However, Wikileaks becomes a globally important phenomenon not because of its leaks, but thanks to its ability to highlight them through a smart interaction with traditional mass media. The informations revealed by Wikileaks are indeed difficult to understand by a common reader, and would anyway be indistinguishable, in the bustle of the Internet, from plenty of other conspiratorial informations. International newspapers interacting with Wikileaks provided with the fundamental technical skills needed to understand the documents and their collocation in the international historical context. Above all, they provided with visibility in the realm of the globalized public sphere. Far from representing a case of dis-intermediation of communication, the Wikileaks phenomenon confirms the need and importance of intermediaries that provide individuals with cognitive strategies essential to cope with the information overload.