Italy : discovering media accountability culture

Italy’s media system represents the perfect example of the Mediterranean Model. Starting from the mid-1970s – when the country’s media landscape began to be a more complex system through the introduction of commercial TV – to the recent process of digitalization, media accountability has been a largely unknown object. Indeed, the characteristics of the Italian media system seem to hinder the rise and the establishment of any nongovernmental method of ensuring the media’s responsibility towards civil society in favor of ›public accountability instruments‹. This report gives a brief account of and discusses the main characteristics of the Italian media system focusing on: the existing journalism culture; the state-related forms of accountability; the main non-state organization hosting a form of accountability, the Ordine dei Giornalisti (Journalists’ Association). The report also discusses the emergence of two contrasting instruments of media criticism: infotainment TV programs and the blogosphere. (Media Accountability and Transparency in Europe (2010-PQ7-0011)).