A change of season. The demise of political cultures and triumph of "television neo-culture"

The transition from the late Seventies to the early Eighties marks a radical transformation of the Italian cultural and media industry, defining features that would last for the next thirty years. The essay aims to deepen and illustrate the "change of season" that takes place in Italy between 1976-1977 (end of the public broadcasting monopoly, colour television start, end of "Carosello") and 1983-1984 (Berlusconi's commercial TV empire). Three separate but related levels define this crucial historical period: the sociocultural "individualistic revolution", the whole "media system" transformation (giving rise to the hegemonic role of television on an economic, political and symbolic level) and the redefinition of the relationship between the traditional political cultures that had dominated the post-war period and the cultural industry itself (overturning of the television and political relationship). During the last thirty years, starting from last century's "change of season", TV has developed its own popular "neo-culture", which founds its centre of gravity and point of origin in the advent and later success of the commercial model of television, The essay represents an important vademecum to understand a recent past that does not yet seem concluded.