North/South, East/West focuses on the visual and discursive representation of identity promoted by public and private Italian national television at the turn of the twenty-first century. Michela Ardizzoni examines the role of politics, conglomeration, immigration, and satellite technology in framing discourses of gender, ethnic, and regional identities. In a time of social and political change for Italy, characterized by the increased visibility of ethnic minorities and the rise to political power of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's largest media mogul,North/South, East/West provides an in-depth textual analysis of current programs and their vision of identity.
North/South, East/West analyzes the economic, cultural, and political levels of identity production on contemporary Italian television by focusing particularly on regionalism, gender, ethnicity, and immigration as central to Italian identity politics.
