«Comunicazioni sociali», 2015, n. 1, 7-21 © 2015 Vita e Pensiero / Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore MASSIMO SCAGLIONI* TELEVISION AS A PROJECT The relation between public service broadcasting and Italian historical cultures (1954-1994) Abstract In his recent book, Jerome Bourdon has clearly showed that the ideal type of the “public service” is underlain by different conceptions, perspectives and visions. To understand how this concept, and more generally the “idea of television”, manifests itself in Italy, it is essential to start from the cultures that have a vision of “public service”, and of television itself, and that seek to turn this vision into something concrete. Looking at the irst four decades of Italian television history, we can identify two driving forces, that also offer two ways to interpret and relate to the television medium. I refer to them as “control” and “project”. “Control” (control over television) is a con- tinuous attitude that permeates the historical cultures in their approach to television. By “project”, I mean the development of a vision that is broader and richer than the simple concern for “control” but that shares with it the need to “channel” the explosive power of TV to relect ideal or “ideo- logical” needs, in line with the cultures that these projects have articulated. The essay looks at the period from the 1950s (with the advent of television) to the late 80s and early 90s, pointing out how the different historical cultures have tried both to exert inluence and control and to develop speciic projects on television. Keywords Television history; cultural history; public service broadcasting; TV and politics. 1. television, national cultures and political parties In a recent book containing a valuable comparative discussion on the history of televi- sion in various European countries, Jérôme Bourdon has shown very clearly how the generic ideal type of European-style “public-service broadcasting” is actually underlain by conceptions, perspectives and visions that differ somewhat according to the period and the sociocultural environment in which they were formulated 1 . To understand how the public television service took shape and evolved in Italy, it is crucial to analyze the medium’s relationship with the historical national cultures that attempted to “mould” the small-screen world, to transform an ideal vision into a con- crete television enterprise over several decades, starting from the Fifties. Indeed, one of the most important features of Italian television history is the con- stant attention that it has received in public and intellectual debate. This debate had a * Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione e dello Spettacolo, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuo- re, Milano – massimo.scaglioni@unicatt.it. 1 J. Bourdon, Du Service public à la télé-réalité. Une Histoire culturelle des télévisions européennes, 1950-2010, Paris: INA, 2011.