![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper measures social pluralism in the most popular free-to-air TV groups in Italy (Rai, a state-controlled company, and Mediaset, owned by Berlusconi’s family) between 2008 and 2014. Media social pluralism is the ability of the mass media to describe and take into account the different categories of citizens in a society. The Italian Authority for Telecommunications regularly collects data on the airtime devoted to 22 “social actors” during newscasts. Our findings show that the public TV broadcaster shows a wider internal social pluralism than Mediaset. The data also reveal significant inter-group differences (external pluralism). The degree of internal and external pluralism decreased when Silvio Berlusconi served as Prime Minister.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank Hugh Martin, Lapo Filistrucchi, Wilfred Dolfsma, Azzurra Valentini and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 More precisely, the Italian public broadcasting service is controlled by the central government.
2 For example, some argue that individuals with more liberal views pay more attention to themes such as world affairs, labour and social issues, while conservative viewers are more interested in issues such as law and order, immigration and security (Durante and Knight Citation2012). This issue fits the Italian economic and institutional situation particularly well, because the most popular private TV channels are controlled by the family of Silvio Berlusconi, who had been the leader of the right-wing coalition since 1993, and thus are expected to reflect the views of more conservative citizens.
3 To overcome this difficulty, Rennhoff and Wilbur (Citation2014) propose a market-based measure of viewpoint diversity. In relation to local television news, Rennhoff and Wilbur (Citation2014) found that viewpoint diversity is apparently not associated with local media market ownership. Rennhoff and Wilbur (Citation2012) and George and Gee (Citation2011) obtained similar results: market structure exerts little influence on diversity.
4 The Italian Parliament elects seven members of the Rai Administrative Council. The other two members are nominated by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The Council appoints the Director-General. The Director-General and the members of the Administrative Council are appointed for a renewable three-year term.
5 Auditel is a company that collects audience data. Its shareholders comprise all Italian public and private television companies as well as advertiser and advertising agency associations.
6 The significance of Cramer’s V is the same as is calculated with Pearson’s chi-squared test.
7 The association between favouring certain social actors and a right/left political orientation raises several issues, which we leave for future work.
8 See Brosius, Wober, and Weimann (Citation1992) and Meyer and Muthaly (Citation2008) for related research. Unfortunately, no study reports concrete results regarding the loyalty of viewers to TV channels.
9 Although the majority of journalists view themselves as “neutral,” they can still involuntarily affect the perceptions of the public (McCarthy and Dolfsma Citation2014).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Andrea Mangani
Andrea Mangani is Associate Professor in Applied Economics in the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa.
Elisa Tarrini
Elisa Tarrini is a Research Assistant in the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa. Email: [email protected].