Abstract
The Berlusconi years have witnessed Italy placed in the uncomfortable spotlight of the international media; however, now that Berlusconi’s power has waned, a timely reflection is due on the extent to which the vestiges of the former Premier’s cultural have coloured images of Italy in British news discourse. How far do cultural myths influence the selection, narration and reception of Italian news reported in British newspapers? Do Berlusconi’s verbal gaffes reverberate in the construal of newsworthiness and evaluative parameters, reinforcing and perpetuating stereotypes of Italians as a whole? These are the key issues this contribution attempts to address. Stemming from a broader research project on the representation of Berlusconi’s non politically correct language in the British press, this study examines the representation of certain aspects of Italian culture that have been the focus of British news narratives in recent years. Four recurring themes are explored and discussed: homophobia, racism, sexism and fascism. Implementing a critical discourse analysis approach, news texts retrieved from a cross-section of British newspapers reporting on Italian affairs are examined. The analysis then focuses on the invisibility of translation in reconstructing discursive events in news narratives across cultural and linguistic barriers, and suggests that decisions taken in translation solutions can reproduce and reinforce myths or stereotypes.
Highlights
1.1 Introduction This study engages with British news discourse and its representation of significant social debates that emerged in Italy towards the end of Silvio Berlusconi’s political dominance
Starting from Tunstall’s (1996: 341) premise that ‘a nation’s foreign news reflects its prejudices and sentiments’, this article asks to what extent current British news narratives reproduce and coincide with established cultural stereotypes of Italianness
Adopting a critical discourse analysis approach, a small dataset constructed from the year 2013–14 explores three narrative themes: ‘Anti-gay Italy’, ‘Sexist Italy’ and ‘Racist Italy’
Summary
Berlusconi’s legacy? In attempting to explain the popular consent that Berlusconi has maintained until fairly recently, Pasquino (2011) borrows from political scientist Edward Banfield’s theory of ‘amoral familism’. Banfield views amoral familism as the root of societal backwardness. He defines it as ‘the inability [...] to act together for the common good, or for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family’ (1958: 10). What singles out a progressive society is ‘the advancement of community welfare’ (18). In late modernity, ‘community welfare’ could be construed as the extent to which a community engages with socio-political and cultural issues: civil and human rights, education and a sense of civic duty in order to improve the lives of community members. A more enlightened socio-political outlook delineates a more evolved society, tending towards a liberal-socialist
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