Lo schermo e lo specchio: migranti italiani nei mass-media (1946-1984)
Author(s)
Caprarelli, Anna
Date Issued
March 18, 2010
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
A research on Italian migration in Belgium, during the post-war era, linked to the subject of
mediatic representation and self-representation. In this analysis the study of “new” media such as
cinema, radio and TV (INR, RTB and then RTBF) as well as the Internet has prevailed. From the
signature of the first bilateral treaties to the awareness of the life conditions of the Italian workers, the essay traces the evolution in the representation of the Italian migrant figure. Through the Belgian mass-media the essay evaluates the ways of integration in the arrival society. What importance had the Italian community in the mediatic “representation” of the Belgian society? The Italian miners, so necessary to win the “coal war”, were unfortunately indelibly connected to the alliance with the Nazi Germany. Immediately some “a priori” ideas settled in the Belgian public opinion. The Italian migrants are often criticized with irony and sarcasm. On the other hand they are
often relegated in closed social groups, with diametrically different customs from the hosting
country. Besides, in period of crisis migrants tend to become the first victims of the social
discontent. The “cultural shock” does the rest.
However from these differences, a new positive confrontation takes place and allows us to check
which assimilation features are taking place in the Italian community living in Belgium. They
gradually adopt the local way of living, in a particular mix of customs and languages.
Television becomes the symbol of this mixed society, united altogether in the consumption. A
television that on one side standardizes the behaviours and the mentality but that on the other hand shows the migrant as a different person, sometimes denouncing the palpable social imbalances. The situation of the Belgian movie industry is underlined as well as its difficult representation of the Italian community. A representation often denied until the second half of the 70’s, moment in which the auto-representation begins together with the personal elaboration of young directors
coming from the second generation. The RTBF archive (radio and TV) has deserved a special
attention for its consultation conditions but also because it has paradoxically preserved the complete set of film regarding the “Ciao amici” show, aired in Italian. This point is particularly interesting and useful to stress out the idea that the building of a self-identity goes inevitably with the use of the communication medium and through the right to the freedom of expression, particularly regarding the community needs. Internet has become, in these last years, a capital communication instrument, combining low access costs to numberless technical ways to share information and to express oneself, even as a community. From simple websites to true collaborative online portals, the Italian presence on the web is multiform and trans-generational. The complexity and variety of the available digital realities are a “truthful” mirror of today Italian reality, giving voice not only to the first generation of the post-war migration but especially to the third and even fourth generation of Italo-Belgian.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Società, istituzioni e sistemi politici europei (19.-20. secolo)
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