Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:40:44.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The creation of shared space and the definition of a ‘light’ community in Italian television in the 1980s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Marcella Rizzo
Marcella Rizzo*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli, Italy
*
∗Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the mid-1970s the reform of Italy's radio and television system led to the end of RAI's monopoly and the advent of commercial television stations. This resulted in a reorganisation of the system according to the precepts of daily life and domesticity, with viewers at the centre of the relationship with the medium. This article, by analysing televisual archives such as game shows, explores how television formed part of the changes taking place in society and reveals how it became a kind of meeting-place, coinciding with the rise of an affluent society, between aspirations and desires and stereotypical models dictated by the market. These models were able to express new values that went beyond the boundaries of ideological affiliations and were in effect a response to the search for new forms of identity. In particular, television's place became an open space that was defined through modes of socialisation. It thus constructed a wider intimacy, a ‘mediatised hearth’, that progressively eroded the barriers between the private and the public sphere and led unexpectedly towards a ‘relationship of interest’ between television, competitors, viewers and financial backers. A new community then emerged, characterised more by possessing than by existing.

Keywords

televisionItalian historyadvertisinggame showsBerlusconi
Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 55 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

13° Censimento generale della popolazione e delle abitazioni – 20/10/1991. 1994. Rome: Istat.Google Scholar
Ajello, N. 1984. Mezzogiorno di fuoco. L'Espresso, November 11.Google Scholar
Anania, F. 1997. Davanti allo schermo. Storia del pubblico televisivo. Rome: Nuova Italia Scientifica.Google Scholar
Arbasino, A. 1992. Questa è cacca per gli zombi. L'Espresso, November 1.Google Scholar
Ariès, P. and Duby, G. 1987. La vita privata. Il novecento. Rome–Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Augé, M. 1992. Nonluoghi, Introduzione ad una antropologia della modernità. Milan: Eleuthea.Google Scholar
Barbagli, M., and Saraceno, C., eds. 1997. Lo stato delle famiglie in Italia. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Bauman, Z. 2006. Homo consumens. Trento: Erikson.Google Scholar
Bellah, R. 1974. “Le cinque religioni dell'Italia moderna.” In Il caso italiano, edited by Cavazza, F.L. and Graubard, S.R., 439–68. Milan: Garzanti.Google Scholar
Biorcio, R. and Maneri, M. 1993. “Consumi e società: dagli anni ottanta agli anni novanta.” In L'Italia che cambia, edited by Livolsi, M., 185–208. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Google Scholar
Bocca, G. 1984. Hip, hip, hip, Carrà! L'Espresso, March 11.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Calvi, G., ed. 1987. Indagine sociale italiana. Rapporto Eurisko 1986. Milan: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Casetti, F. 1988. Tra me e Te. Strategie di coinvolgimento dello spettatore nella neotelevisione. Rome: Rai-Vpt/Eri.Google Scholar
Dalla Zuanna, G. 2001. “The Banquet of Aeolus: A Familistic Interpretation of Italy's Lowest Low Fertility.” Demographic Research 4(5):133–62.Google Scholar
Documento Auditel. Audience televisive in Italia: Obiettivi, strutture e tecnologie. 1990. December.Google Scholar
Eco, U. 1976. Buonasera, vi parla Pancho Villa. L'Espresso, February 8.Google Scholar
Ellis, J. 2000. Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Ellis, J. 2006. “Il passato sullo schermo.” In Fare storia con la televisione, edited by Grasso, A., 163–172. Milan: Vita & Pensiero.Google Scholar
Ellis, J. 2007. TV FAQ. London–New York: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Fenati, B. 1989. “Cenni storici sul palinsesto nella televisione Italiana.” In Costruire Palinsesti, edited by Rizza, N., 166–88. Turin: Eri-Vqpt.Google Scholar
Forgacs, D. 1992. L'industrializzazione della cultura italiana. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Gatti, R., and Nicotri, G. 1984. Abito scuro, un po' di sesso e tanta TV. L'Espresso, March 4.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, P. 1988. Storia d'Italia. 1943–1996: famiglia, storia, società. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Ginsborg, P. 1998. L'Italia del tempo presente. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Gismondi, A. 1958. La televisione in Italia. Rome: Editori Riuniti.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. 1990. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Grasso, A., ed. 2006. Fare storia con la televisione. Milan: Vita & Pensiero.Google Scholar
Grigaffini, G. 2004. I generi Televisivi. Rome: Carocci, 2004.Google Scholar
Gundle, S. 2002. “Hollywood Glamour and Mass Consumption in Postwar Italy.” Journal of Cold War Studies 4(3):95–118.Google Scholar
Holmes, S. 2008. The Quiz Show. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Indagine multiscopo sulle famiglie. 1991. Rome: Istat.Google Scholar
Livolsi, M. 1993a. “Consumi e consumi culturali.” In L'Italia che Cambia, edited by Livolsi, M., 235–48. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Google Scholar
Livolsi, M., ed. 1993b. L'Italia che cambia. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Google Scholar
Lo Spettacolo in Italia. Statistiche 1988. 1990. Rome: SIAE.Google Scholar
Löfgren, O. and Frykman, J. 1979. Culture Builders: A Historical Anthropology of Middle-Class Life. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Mellencamp, P., ed. 1990. Logics of Television: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Menduni, E. 2007. I caratteri nazionali e l'influenza americana nella nascità della televisione italiana. Memoria e ricerca 26, September–December:115–39.Google Scholar
Morley, D. and Silverstone, R. 1990. “Domestic Communication: Technologies and Meanings.” Media, Culture & Society 12(1):31–55.Google Scholar
Rizza, N. 1989. Costruire palinsesti. Turin: Eri-Vqpt.Google Scholar
Sampò, E. 1983. “Trent'anni di televisione in Italia.” Radiocorriere 40:88–90.Google Scholar
Saraceno, C. 1987. “La famiglia: i paradossi della costruzione del privato.” In La vita privata. Il novecento, edited by Ariès, P. and Duby, G., 33–78. Rome–Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Scannell, P. 1996. Radio, Television and Modern Life: A Phenomenological Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Scannell, P. 1989. “Public Service Broadcasting and Modern Public Life.” Media, Culture & Society 11(2):135–66.Google Scholar
Scannell, P. 2006. “Diretta e Registrata: la storicità della televisione.” In Fare Storia con la televisione, edited by Grasso, A., 173–93. Milan: Vita & Pensiero.Google Scholar
Scarpellini, E. 2008. L'Italia dei consumi: dalla belle epoque al nuovo millennio. Rome: Laterza.Google Scholar
Simmel, G. 1971. Georg Simmel on individuality and social forms, edited by Levine, D.N. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Stajano, C. 1979. I vitellastri. L'Espresso, November 11.Google Scholar
Stefanizzi, S. 1993. “Valori e individui nella società italiana: continuità o cambiamento?” In L'Italia che cambia, edited by Livolsi, M., 91–122. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Google Scholar
Tosi, A. 1997. “La famiglia e l'abitazione.” In Lo stato delle famiglie in Italia, edited by Barbagli, M. and Saraceno, C., 290–300. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Turnock, R. 2007. Television and Consumer Culture. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Vicari, S. 1993. “Economia e società: le trasformazioni economiche e sociali dell'ultimo decennio.” In L'Italia che cambia, edited by Livolsi, M., 251–73. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Google Scholar