La buona educazione come doxa mediale. Galateo, visibilità e violenza simbolica nell'ecosistema digitale = Good Manners as Media Doxa: Etiquette, Visibility, and Symbolic Violence within the Digital Ecosystem

Abstract

Good Manners as Media Doxa: Etiquette, Visibility, and Symbolic Violence within the Digital Ecosystem. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and the conceptual constellation of field-capital-habitus, this article interprets “good manners” not as a simple normative code, but as a historical form of symbolic capital capable of naturalizing social hierarchies and class differences. While in European modernity etiquette operated as a technology of distinction and social order reproduction, its migration onto digital platforms reconfigures this logic as a resource of visibility, reputation, and public legitimation. Through the analysis of a corpus of 149 items extracted from five Italian Instagram profiles dedicated to etiquette in the period February-April 2026, the article identifies three main modalities of doxa naturalization – through universalization, aestheticization, and moralization – and demonstrates how algorithmic engagement functions as a system of symbolic consecration that amplifies the logics of distinction historically codified in etiquette manuals.