Books of Fausto Colombo

I social media sono diventati essenziali nelle nostre vite

Fra la fine degli anni Sessanta e la metà degli anni Novanta l'Italia cambia due volte pelle, corpo, anima

The essays collected in this volume (ideally addressed to our European colleagues and fellow citizens) treat the relationship between media and politics in Italy through the analysis of some exemplary cases. The essays deal with a variety of subjects: television formats, the counter-informative effectiveness of blogs, political scandal and gossip on political leaders, the actual political dimension of journalism dealing with national or international events. Although the focus is the Italian context, the research perspective is international and our country is considered as exemplary of a trend involving the late Western democracies. In this sense, the Italian case is not intended as a curiosity or exception, but as a strong indicator of this trans-national trend, that not only alters the substance of democracy, but reduces its strength and puts this same substance at risk.

This publication arises from a conference entitled Television and Interactivity in Europe held in Milan, at the Università Cattolica, on 12 December 2003, under the auspices of Cost (European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) Action 20 (The Impact of the Internet on the Mass Media in Europe). The aim of the essays here collected is to throw light, from the perspective of social research, on the concept of interactivity, which is presented as the value driver of digital television in the contemporary debate. The first section in which Digital Television is contextualized in its technological, economic and socio-cultural dimensions, is focused on the theoretical discussion of interactivity, considered both in its strong and weak versions. The second section gathers a series of national case histories, offering a comparison between different European ways to Terrestrial Digital.

This volume presents the main theoretical findings and research results of a working group of Cost Action 20. This group, entitled Television and film has focused its investigation on the processes of Tv digitisation regarding both the impact of internet and the web, and the innovation of traditional media. This book tries to answer the question: “how is digitisation changing the television medium?”. The aim is to identify paradigms useful for a policy of innovation in the television field. Particularly: how to deal with the question of power in the management of media? How to exploit and mould our current knowledge in the field of the diffusion of innovation? What can or must be the role of the public service in the envisaged scenarios? And how can we conceive television audiences of the future to be? The book presents also some comparative, cross-country studies, aimed at showing differences and recurrences in the various European countries.