The role of social networking services to shape the double virtual citizenship of young immigrants in Italy

In this paper, we will describe an ongoing research on the communication styles of immigrant adolescents in Italy. Following a comparison of native and immigrant high school students, based on their responses to questionnaires and interviews, we began a series of interviews and focus groups with immigrant students, which led us to propose and use what we call the immigrants' double virtual citizenship as a key to understand the use of social networks among young immigrants. The double tension of young immigrants, towards their homeland on one side, towards their new country on the other side, might be profitably exploited to build bridges among different cultures.