On the Outskirts of Digitalizazion. Public Administration and Citizens Outside and Inside the Net

This paper is going to analyze the mutation determined by net technologies in the relation between citizens and institutions in Italy, outlining opportunities and critical elements. Platforms, both as technological structures, and as environments hosting social and economic relations, have given shape to a new communicative ecosystem. The high value that technological devices have in terms of disintermediation allows everybody to carry out more activities at the same time and to reduce the time of the relation with institutional interfaces. The pandemic has strongly accelerated digital transition: digital devices have infact ensured continuity to most public and private activities and daily activities mediated by the net have increased: for some citizens this has meant an intensification in the use of technologies that were already well known; for others it has been exploring new devices for the first time. In this case digital disintermediation has proved to be a strenght, but it would be necessary to ponder about what these innovative trends are going to leave. In particular, in the field of relations with the public administration - the focus of this article - will the logics of the apps, that has promoted services integration and information collection and processing, establish itself structurally? It is necessary, then, to think about how many people can afford digital disintermediation: there are economic, social and territorial gaps. Maximizing the opportunities that the digital world offers means, therefore, taking action to deal with this deficit, making digitalization an instrument of new equality. The use of technologies does not allow just the possibility to use skills in a participatory way, but also to consider the abilities gained as tools useful for a cultural change.