Globalization and Contemporary Italian Media Examines the Impact of Globalization on Contemporary Italian Media
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AND Communications | Media Studies ARDIZZONI Critical Media Studies FERRARI Series Editor: Andrew Calabrese “This smart and accessible volume guides the reader across the diverse and fascinating terrain BEYOND of Italian media, showing why the common fixation on the media empire of Silvio Berlusconi obscures the complicated cultural reality of Italy today. Michela Ardizzoni and Chiara Ferrari have selected an impressive collection of critical essays on topics ranging from local guerrilla television to digital media to transnational satellite TV. Taken together, these studies profoundly expand and enrich our understanding of such important concerns as globalization, corporatiza- tion, and transculturation.” —Michael Curtin, University of California, Santa Barbara MONOPOLY “The essays in this innovative and timely book offer a fascinating insight into lesser-known aspects of the Italian media system in the era of Berlusconi. Beyond Monopoly will be of great GLOBALIZATION AND value to anyone interested in understanding the way the Italian media have changed in the last BEYOND MONOPOLY twenty years. While Berlusconi looms large in the volume, the focus falls on unconventional and CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN MEDIA alternative media as well as the opportunities furnished through technological change, globaliza- tion, and national and local media markets.” —Stephen Gundle, Warwick University Current trends of globalization have influenced the social, economic, and political framework of national media worldwide. In recent years, the field of media studies has focused on globaliza- tion as a phenomenon that has greatly impacted the production and reception of media formats. By reshaping local economies, diversifying societies, and introducing digital technologies, the globalization of media has enacted a process of redefinition of national and local broadcast- ing. Beyond Monopoly: Globalization and Contemporary Italian Media examines the impact of globalization on contemporary Italian media. By engaging both the production and reception levels of different media, this volume assesses the extent to which Italian media have been part of current trends of media flows and have responded to the centrifugal and centripetal forces of globalization. The contributors to this edited volume touch upon a wide range of issues, such as foreign ownership on satellite TV, the effects of digital technology on media policy making, and the framing of “Otherness” in the news. Beyond Monopoly provides a unique case study of the complexity of national media in the era of globalization that will appeal to students as well as scholars of global and national media systems. CONTRIBUTORS Michela Ardizzoni, Flavia Barca, Milly Buonanno, Rinella Cere, Alessandro D’Arma, Chiara Ferrari, Elisa Giomi, Mark Hayward, Andrea Marzulli, Lorenzo Mizzau, Fabrizio Montanari, Giorgia Nesti, Cinzia Padovani, Marta Perrotta, Federico Riboldazzi, Cristian Vaccari, Chiara Valentini, Alberto Zambenedetti MICHELA ARDIZZONI is assistant professor in the department of French and Italian and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is author of North/South, East/West: Mapping Italianness on Television. CHIARA FERRARI is assistant professor of mass communication in the Department of Communication Design at California State University, Chico. For orders and information please contact the publisher LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. EDITED BY MICHELA ARDIZZONI 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 90000 1-800-462-6420 • www.lexingtonbooks.com 9 780739 128510 Cover image courtesy of Andrea Baldi AND CHIARA FERRARI BeyondMonopolyLITHO.indd 1 11/16/09 5:29:48 PM Beyond Monopoly CRITICAL MEDIA STUDIES Series Editor Andrew Calabrese, University of Colorado This series covers a broad range of critical research and theory about me- dia in the modern world. It includes work about the changing structures of the media, focusing particularly on work about the political and economic forces and social relations which shape and are shaped by media institu- tions, structural changes in policy formation and enforcement, technological transformations in the means of communication, and the relationships of all these to public and private cultures worldwide. Historical research about the media and intellectual histories pertaining to media research and theory are particularly welcome. Emphasizing the role of social and political theory for informing and shaping research about communications media, Critical Media Studies addresses the politics of media institutions at national, subnational, and transnational levels. The series is also interested in short, synthetic texts on key thinkers and concepts in critical media studies. Titles in the series Beyond Monopoly: Globalization and Contemporary Italian Media edited by Michela Ardizzoni and Chiara Ferrari Global Communications: Toward a Transcultural Political Economy edited by Paula Chakravartty and Yuezhi Zhao Governing European Communications: From Unification to Coordination by Maria Michalis Knowledge Workers in the Information Society edited by Catherine Mc- Kercher and Vincent Mosco Democratic Communications: Formations, Projects, Possibilities by James F. Hamilton Hegemony in the Digital Age: The Arab/Israeli Conflict Online by Stephen Marmura Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy: The Emergence of DIY by Alan O’Connor From the Labyrinth of the World to the Paradise of the Heart: Science and Humanism in UNESCO’s Approach to Globalization by Vincenzo Pavone The Laboring of Communication: Will Knowledge Workers of the World Unite? by Vincent Mosco and Catherine McKercher Cultural Studies and Political Economy: Toward a New Integration by Rob- ert Babe Patronizing the Public: American Philanthropy’s Transformation of Culture, Communication, and the Humanities edited by William J. Buxton Beyond Monopoly Globalization and Contemporary Italian Media Edited by Michela Ardizzoni and Chiara Ferrari LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beyond monopoly : globalization and contemporary Italian media / Michela Ardizzoni and Chiara Ferrari [editors]. p. cm. — (Critical media studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-2851-0 (cloth : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-0-7391-4267-7 (electronic) 1. Mass media and globalization—Italy. 2. Mass media and culture—Italy. 3. Mass media policy—Italy. I. Ardizzoni, Michela, 1969- II. Ferrari, Chiara, 1975– P94.65.I8B49 2010 302.230945—dc22 2009038877 ϱ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America Contents Foreword vii Milly Buonanno Introduction: Italian Media between the Local and the Global xi Chiara Ferrari and Michela Ardizzoni PART I: GLOBALIZATION, POLICY, AND TECHNOLOGY 1 Shaping Tomorrow’s Television: Policies on Digital Television in Italy, 1996–2006 3 Alessandro D’Arma 2 “Il Caso Canadese” and the Question of Global Media 21 Mark Hayward 3 Digital Terrestrial Television and Its Promises: Framing the Debate on the Transition to Digital Television in Italy 37 Cinzia Padovani PART II: TELEVISION FLOWS AND FORMATS 4 Struggling for Identity: The Television Production Sector in Italy and the Challenges of Globalization 57 Flavia Barca and Andrea Marzulli. 5 Public and Private, Global and Local in Italian Crime Drama: The Case of La Piovra 79 Elisa Giomi v vi Contents 6 Dubbing The Simpsons: Or How Groundskeeper Willie Lost His Kilt in Sardinia 101 Chiara Ferrari 7 A Peninsula in the Sea of TV Formats: Exploring Italian Adaptations of Survivor 129 Marta Perrotta PART III: NEW AND ALTERNATIVE MEDIA 8 E-democracy and Italian Public Administration: New Media at the Service of Citizens 151 Giorgia Nesti and Chiara Valentini 9 Neighborhood Television Channels in Italy: The Case of Telestreet 171 Michela Ardizzoni 10 Web-Based Technologies in Media and Cultural Production: Emerging Evidence from Italian Web-TVs and Web-Radios 185 Lorenzo Mizzau, Federico Riboldazzi, and Fabrizio Montanari PART IV: IMMIGRATION AND DIVERSITY 11 Missed Opportunities: The Debate on Immigrants’ Voting Rights in Italian Newspapers and Television 203 Cristian Vaccari 12 Globalization vs. Localization: Anti-immigrant and Hate Discourses in Italy 225 Rinella Cere 13 Multiculturalism in New Italian Cinema: The Impact of Migration, Diaspora, and the Post-Colonial on Italy’s Self-Representation 245 Alberto Zambenedetti Index 269 About the Contributors 277 Foreword Milly Buonanno I would like to take the liberty to start this brief foreword with a couple