Rome, December 2014. The Italian Special Operations Group — Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale (ROS) — sheds light on a network of corrupt relationships between some politicians and criminals in the Italian capital through the operation “Mondo di mezzo” — namely “Middle World”. The revealed organization operated in the city of Rome and the region of Lazio and its working methods are presumed to be associable to Mafia. The scandal was named “Capitale” due to the involvement of the government of the Italian capital. Following the huge resonance of the events of the investigation, this project is aimed to analyze and study the evolution of the story through the means of information dissemination utilized by mass media.

The project examines this news phenomenon to understand how the Italian national media aligned themselves towards the events of Mafia Capitale. The analysis was conducted on five main channels of mass communication: newspapers (printed and online), TV programs, blogs, and social networks. The final result is a considerable report of 200+ pages that carries quantitative and qualitative analysis performed on the entirety of the collected material. The project spans over three specific periods of time: from December 2nd to 6th, 2014; from June 1st to 11th, 2015; from November 4th to 6th, 2015.