University, social media and students' engagement: the challenge of "trust" in organizational communication. A voice from European university researchers to foster inclusion in higher education

Marina GALIOTO ^1,2* Francesca Pedone ^1,2 Apostolos Vantarakis ³ Alessandra La Marca ^1,2 Antonino Bianco ^1,2

• ¹ Department of Psychology, Educational Sciences and Human Movement, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
• ² University of Palermo, Palermo, Sicily, Italy
• ³ University of Patras, Patras, Western Greece, Greece

encourage general audience's empowerment with greater interaction in virtual scenarios and digital spaces (Guillory & Sundar, 2014) (Taylor & Kent, 2014) (Gopika, 2023;Young et al., 2020) (Capriotti et al., 2024).The COVID-19 Pandemic has disrupted traditional methodologies and digital communication has become strategic not only to keep alive a worth public image, but especially to hold people involved in a community, seeking to provide feelings of safety and consideration: despite distances and prohibitions, social media have ensured individuals to communicate with families, friends and peers (Cho et al., 2023). Nowadays more than half of the global population uses social media, and it happens not just to experience them: people tend to use networks to connect with others as social need (Brandtzaeg & Heim, 2009): nevertheless, while institutions need to equip properly themselves with the ambition to produce an impactful digital storytelling of "what they are" through "what we see", educators and institutional managers have the responsibility to enhance new embedded canals to educate and train students, from schools to universities, exploiting the timeless power of social media platforms (Sanz-Labrador et al., 2021).Beside this functional aspect, suppose now the priority for social media platforms to attract and keep their audience involved, entertained: following this view, institutions sharing contents through social media have the same purpose to entertain and engage their communities as partners for building a shared public identity (Ihlen et al., 2011) (Dhanesh et al., 2022).In fact, the more people feel they are part of an institution, the more the management can count on them and have the chance to influence new trends. From this perspective, we want to focus on universities, leading the idea that digital community development, interactions between academics and staN through social media and students 'engagement promotion are deeply learning contexts (Ansari & Khan, 2020) (Lu et al., 2024). 135Along with a general agreement on beneficial eNects brought on students by feelings related to 136 sense of community and inclusion (Allen et al., 2021) and their capacity to lessen disparities 137 and ethnics matters among students during their academic experiences (Gopalan & Brady, 138 2020), researchers are still debating the most eNective way to generate engagement among 139 users and how to measure it (Smith & Gallicano, 2015). 140It follows that as researchers detecting digital environments within universities we cannot 141 ignore the relevant key role raised up by the emotional well-being in academic performance 142 and students 'living: educators have the responsibility to turn the impact of the social media's 143 use on everyday life in an innovative path to promote health among students, aiming at a 144 sustainable educational evolution, exploring new tactics to succeed in human progress (Kent 145 & Taylor, 2021) (Li, 2022). Organizing and sharing contents from an institutional account (SPPEFF Department) of an important institution like the University of Palermo can be challenging and exciting for students, even if perceived as a task of responsibility. We are committed to involve, within an experimental educational design, persons attending programs from this department, engaging them in the natural process of building the digital identity for our institution under a collaborative view: we understand this could reveal an explosive power in terms of concern and interest. Nevertheless, we are aware that this digital enterprise needs special attention on policy 'aspects related to privacy and informatic risks; moreover, this experimental editorial plan should be validated and supported by a team of experts based on well-structured rules, scientific rigor, timing and scope.Literature have reported about some municipalities in Italy that have already experimented citizen-based management activities for a while, in the framework of specific engagements' objectives, and the results were encouraging (Ducci et al., 2019).The SPPEFF department training oNer is characterized by themes referring to psychology, pedagogy and other specific educational courses person-centered related to the development of knowledges and skills to deal with people along the lifespan, from children to adults.We are confident that initiatives for digital innovation, following an experimental approach led by a research unit in a social media laboratory, where human relationships care and trust are considered strategic for developing a fruitful collaboration, not only may improve people's autonomy and academic self-eNicacy in students attending program, but also an overall sense of community and inclusivity (Montgomery, 2018) (Aldossari, 2023;Alshuaibi et al., 2018;Ansari & Khan, 2020) .Strengthening an innovative institutional communication approach students-based, fully immersed in the learning environment, grounded on loyalty and reliability as the roots of a long- lasting social pact, looks to be a sustainable way to progress in organizational communication, influencing an ideal cultural evolution (Whittaker & Montgomery, 2014).