Crisis, innovation & the cultural industry in Italy

The essay aims to highlight the complex theme of media relations and crisis within the history of the Italian media system. The perspective used here makes possible a new periodization of the national media system, one that goes beyond the monomedial perspectives that are largely prevalent today. Starting from economic data and social analysis, the essay argues that the country has been in a substantial crisis for many years, before then revealing how the crisis, in these long years, has at times functioned as a depressive element in the media system, and others fostering innovations in the system, favouring the rise of new content and forms of consumption (for example, with the explosion of private broadcasting, or the advent of social media and the emergence of connective media, as mentioned in earlier contributions).