Here we report on the results of the WEBT photo-polarimetric campaign targeting the blazar S5 0716+71 , organized in March 2014 to monitor the source simultaneously in BVRI and near IR filters .
The campaign resulted in an unprecedented dataset spanning \sim 110 h of nearly continuous , multi-band observations , including two sets of densely sampled polarimetric data mainly in R filter .
During the campaign , the source displayed pronounced variability with peak-to-peak variations of about 30 \% and “ bluer-when-brighter ” spectral evolution , consisting of a day-timescale modulation with superimposed hourlong microflares characterized by \sim 0.1 mag flux changes .
We performed an in-depth search for quasi-periodicities in the source light curve ; hints for the presence of oscillations on timescales of \sim 3 h and \sim 5 h do not represent highly significant departures from a pure red-noise power spectrum .
We observed that , at a certain configuration of the optical polarization angle relative to the positional angle of the innermost radio jet in the source , changes in the polarization degree led the total flux variability by about 2 h ; meanwhile , when the relative configuration of the polarization and jet angles altered , no such lag could be noted .
The microflaring events , when analyzed as separate pulse emission components , were found to be characterized by a very high polarization degree ( > 30 \% ) and polarization angles which differed substantially from the polarization angle of the underlying background component , or from the radio jet positional angle .
We discuss the results in the general context of blazar emission and energy dissipation models .