Ypulse Guest Post: A Dispatch From Rome On The State Of Italian Youth
Posted by meredith on 02-23-2009Today's Ypulse Guest Post comes from Antonio Lopez, a media and communications professor at the American University in Rome. When I asked Antonio to share his insight into Italian youth today, he responded that the news was less than uplifting. Below he expands on this, sharing what he's seen inside and outside of the classroom. If you work in youth media or marketing and have an idea for a Ypulse Guest Post, feel free to email me.
A Dispatch From Rome On The State Of Italian Youth
As a professor of media and communications at an American university, I teach to both semester abroad students and Italians– in English. When it comes to marketing and media, it gives me ample opportunities to compare and contrast cultural perspectives, although my small sample of Italian youth is not exactly typical since the Roman students I work with are there because they are disenchanted with their own university system.
First off, media in the US is much more diverse, Italian youth are more dependent on TV, and even then their choices are limited: you can watch the three state-owned networks, pay high fees for Murdoch's Sky TV, or watch Mediaset channels, the media monopoly owned by Italy's controversial Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi (who also controls a monopoly on the country's advertising). If there ever were a clear example of a propaganda environment, it would be Italy.
Though Italy is famous for its design and fashion — ample evidence of elegance is seen from teens to 80-year-old ladies on the bus — it also self-consciously considers itself a colony of U.S. pop culture. A surprising number of TV shows and films are from the United States (dubbed to maintain some semblance of national dignity), and the common ideal in TV ads is utopic Americana: abundantly filled big middle class homes in suburban-like communities.
When polling my Italian students, none of their lives mimic what is portrayed in the ads. It's a strange disconnect considering that Italian culture offers many things that are surely lacking in American culture. For example, despite economic uncertainty, many have strong family networks to fall back on. These days if you are not married, you are likely to live at home, even if you are in your 30s (male and female). In general, Italians are not as willing to travel as far from home as Americans, living fairly close to where they were born.
Oddly enough, despite the monopolistic media, Italian youth are not really consuming media to the same degree Americans are, except when it comes to cell phones. One of my favorite images of Rome is the sharply clad ragazza [girl] on her Vespa with a cell phone perfectly jammed in her helmet so she can chat while navigating and smoking simultaneously! When she disembarks, she remains impeccably dressed, with attitude to boot.
Despite all the economic uncertainty, Italians remain sure of who they are. From behind bug-eyed shades, Romans are, to borrow a phrase from an ex-pat Website, eternally cool, a steady characteristic going back almost 3,000 years, and one that I assume will survive this unusual moment in history.
More on Antonio Lopez
Antonio Lopez currently teaches media and communications to undergrads at the American University in Rome, and blogs about media education and ecology at mediacology.com Antonio has spent the past seven years working as a media literacy activist and educator and has developed curriculum for two multimedia CDROMs as well as a critique of media literacy practices, Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the 21st Century, which will be published in May.
Categorized under: International
