Giuseppe Richeri

Televisione tra Stato e Mercato : la frattura comunicativa degli anni Settanta

The article describes the Italian broadcasting system from 1974 to 1984: a decade of great change, characterized by the end of the public broadcasting monopoly, the growth of local, private broadcasting, and – at the end of the decade – by the formation of a public-private duopoly. The Constitutional Court and the absence of political decisions and engagement played a central role in the rapidity and breadth of private TV station development. This article focuses on the role of strong, super-market growth in the commercial distribution system, its impact on the information required by consumers to make their choices, and the necessity of increase advertising communication channels. These three factors are used to explain the considerable increase of commercial influences on the Italian broadcast system.

A common technical culture of telegraphy: The Telegraph Union and the significance of technological standardization 1865–1875

The Telegraph Union, founded in 1865, was the first supranational organization to link different countries with the aim of regulating a public service. Its objectives were: technological standardization, a set of regulations and the adoption of uniform international tariffs. The paper aims to establish how the Telegraph Union influenced the technical standardization process of the international network in the second half of the XIX century.

Prologue: When West Met East through the Beijing Olympics

Based on the final report of the research project ‘Communication and the Olympics: the Challenge and Opportunity for Beijing 2008 in Intercultural Exchange’, commissioned by IOC-OSC following selection within the framework of the grand programme set up by the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Studies Centre (OSC), this book is the accomplishment of two years of hard work coordinated by Luo Qing with the cooperation of 12 distinguished research groups worldwide and contributions from nearly 50 professors, researchers, analysts, doctoral candidates and assistants. Back in October 2007 Luo Qing submitted our application to IOC-OSC and took encouragement from the feedback received in December 2007 from the grand programme selection committee comprising worldfamous academic experts in the field of Olympic studies and representatives of the OSC. We then got to work on planning the project and presented it to each of our international cooperators in March 2008. This was when the first of the three stages into which the study was divided – media observatory, media collection and report content analysis – began, and the work continued throughout the year with the torch relay, the Olympic competitions, the online survey before and after the Olympics, the literature analysis at the Olympic museum (Lausanne, April 2008) and the International Olympic Academy (Athens, May 2008). This was followed by the organization of academic symposiums in Beijing (Asia Media Forum: Sports Communications and Globalizations), at Athens University in Greece, at Western Sydney University in Australia and at Musashi University in Japan, before returning to the Lausanne IOC for the presentation of the final report (March 2009), open discussion and final editing (until March 2010). This ‘long march’ has been a unique challenge as well as an opportunity for us all, testing our courage and aspirations, discovering exciting new aspects of communication and the Olympics, the West and East meeting through sports, the encoding and decoding of a mega media event, visual metaphor and hegemony.

I media tra le imprese, il pubblico e lo Stato. Nuove sfide per la ricerca

EnglishDuring last decades the media have witnessed profound changes in technology and contents. Those changes have also influenced the very own media environment. At the same time the change in the media has influenced the social, economic and political dimensions of our societies. Such changes should also open an opportunity for media researchers to question themselves how those changes are, or should be, reflected in their own questioning and research. It is suggested that media research should particularly focus on the relationships between the media, audiences and the state. In order to address the complexity of such phenomena, research agendas should take into account both national and international dimensions of analysis. A multi-focal perspective based in the combined knowledge of economy, sociology, and political science might constitute the needed formula which is able to analyse the roots of change and at the same time provide evidence for foresight. It is argued that only such an approach might allow media researchers to identify the emerging issues and provide policy guiding for the state and international organizations in order to address efficiently the common interests of society at large. portuguesDurante as ultimas decadas temos vindo a testemunhar profundas transformacoes nas tecnologias e nos seus conteudos. Essas mudancas influenciaram o proprio ambiente dos media, ao mesmo tempo que a mudanca nos media tem influenciado as dimensoes social, economica e politica das sociedades contemporâneas. Este conjunto significativo de mudancas abre, simultaneamente, uma oportunidade para os investigadores na area dos media se questionarem de que modo essas mudancas sao, ou deveriam ser, reflectidas nas suas interrogacoes de pesquisa. O presente artigo sugere que: o focus da investigacao sobre os media deve ser colocado nas relacoes entre os media, as audiencias e o Estado; as agendas de pesquisa deverao incorporar ambas as dimensoes nacional e internacional por forma a captarem a complexidade do fenomeno nas suas analises; e devem optar-se por uma perspectiva multifocal que combine a economia, a sociologia e a ciencia politica, combinacao que permitira nao apenas analisar as origens da mudanca, como tambem fornecer dados prospectivos. O artigo argumenta que apenas uma agenda de pesquisa multifacetada como a proposta, permitira aos investigadores identificar as principais questoes emergentes e definir as orientacoes sobre politicas publicas e para as organizacoes internacionais, de uma forma eficiente e integrada, o que se traduzira em resultados em termos de objectivos comuns e da sociedade em geral.

L'industria del copyright nell'economia degli Stati Uniti

Copyright industries belong to the larger sector of the non-material economy, or information economy analysed in the sixties by Machlup and in the seventies by Porat, among others. During the last twenty years the United States copyright industries have continuously outperformed the rest of the economy in term of contribution to GDP, employment levels and in the international commerce. In 2001 value added produced by that sector reached 535 billion dollars and accounted for more then 5% of GDP. Employment grew from 1,5 millionworkers in 1977 to 4,7 million workers in 2001 (3,5% of total workforce). Foreign sales and exports in 2001 reached 89 billion dollars and was larger than almost all other industry sector. They exceeded the chemical products, motor vehicles, aircraft, agricultural sector, etc. Mass media represent a special part of copyright industries because they combine economic, cultural and socio-political values and also because they may be used as consumers good and as production tools (in the case of audience for advertising).