The theme of the relation between the media and the generations has been much explored in recent years, with significant results in both the field of media studies and the sociology of culture. On the media studies side the generational approach has been particularly important in relativising the role of technical evolution...

The essay aims to highlight the complex theme of media relations and crisis within the history of the Italian media system. The perspective used here makes possible a new periodization of the national media system, one that goes beyond the monomedial perspectives that are largely prevalent today...

RIASSUNTO Ho provato a esplorare l’applicabilità di tre concetti foucaultiani (rapporto tra potere e controllo sociale, dire di sé, rapporto tra diritto di parola e verità nei contesti democratici) al dibattito sul web 2.0. Mi pare di aver dimostrato che – più che le risposte – le domande di Foucault abbiano una forte applicabilità, soprattutto se il metodo di analisi dello studioso francese viene assunto nelle sue radici o nella sua forma specifica, che consiste nell’interrogare i fenomeni in relazione agli statuti e ai dispositivi sociali complessivi anziché ai luoghi, alle tecniche, o alle manifestazioni specifiche. Se ho ragione, accogliere metodo e domande foucaultiane significa ridefinire alcune questioni: il dibattito fra libertà e potere sul web può trasformarsi in indagine sulle forme specifiche dell’inevitabile potere nella società delle reti. L’approccio all’esplosione autobiografica si traduce in una domanda sulle modalità e le condizioni del dire di sé a partire dalla pressione sociale a esercitarlo. La polemica sulla democraticità della rete si può rimodulare in una interrogazione sulle condizioni della verità e sulla forma del sapere che vi circola. Tre riformulazioni, la cui chiave giace nelle pagine lasciate da Foucault, ben prima della nascita del web. Ma ben dentro, si intende, il divenire della società tardo moderna. SUMMARY I tried to apply three of Foucault’s concepts (relation between power and social control, talking about oneself, relation between the right of speech and truth in democratic contexts) to the debate on web 2.0. I believe I have proved that – not just his answers – but above all Foucault’s questions have a strong applicability, especially if the analysis method of the French scholar is taken to its roots and its specific forms, i.e. the interpretation of phenomena in relationship to statutes and social apparatuses at large, instead of specific places, techniques, or events. If I am correct, welcoming Foucault’s method and questions means re-defining certain issues: the debate between freedom and power over the web may be transformed into a survey on the specific and inevitable forms of web power over society. The approach to an autobiographical outburst becomes translated into a question regarding the ways and conditions of talking about oneself in order that social pressure may wield it. The controversy over web democracy can be re-modulated as an interrogation on the conditions of truth and the forms of knowledge which flow through it. Three rephrasings then. Their key lies in the pages left by Foucault, long before the web was born. But of course well inside the rise of post modern society.

The article gives an account of a research on the information treatment given to the attacks of Madrid happened on March 11 th 2004 by four national daily papers. In the first days after the attacks it is verifiable a predictable massive coverage of the facts, that joins the newspapers taken into consideration. In parallel, a universalist isotope transversally dominates, founded upon the humanitarian rhetoric: the description both oral and iconic of the innocent victims, the definition of the terrorist acts in themselves as anti-human and pre-political actions. In the initial phase of the information, the narrative and commented registers are open to a plurality of interpretative hypothesis. This, however, leaves well soon the place to some choices on which the headings are markedly divided. If in fact the victims are universally innocent, and the solidarity with them can only be immediate, the executioners’ identification brings along political interpretation and different results in journalistic attitudes. We find therefore a narrative formulation, founded upon investigation and mystery, strong in a newspapers such as «Repubblica», in which the talent for detective journalism is stronger. It occurs then a diplomatic attitude, of disenchanted comment, as far as possible, in which what is reconstructed is the International scenery, with particular reference to the fight of the democratic countries against global terrorism; the «Corriere della Sera» seems to privilege this perspective. Finally there is a political-ideological attitude, which slowly brings the themes to an ideological scenery applicable to Italian history. «The Giornale» and «the Manifesto» are inserted in this discursive choice: therefore, the victims and the executioners continually exchange their place and the proximity between the Spanish government of Aznar and the Italian one of Berlusconi are read only as one front (to be supported in «the Giornale»’s opinion, to be fought in «the manifesto»’s opinion). The defeat of Aznar becomes the pre-figuration of Silvio Berlusconi’s defeat. The scene changes, the victims, slowly fade away.