Italian Radio Research Articles

‘Non è mai troppo tardi’. An Italian TV programme in the service of public education (1958–1967): an accounting [in] history perspective

ABSTRACT ‘Telescuola’ (translated readily as ‘Teleschool’) was an innovative educational television project realised by the Italian radio and television broadcasting service – RAI (1958–1967) that aimed at improving the conditions of the population through TV lessons, specifically by contributing to the literacy of adults. Using financial statements from RAI, data from the Ministry of Public Education and Labour – considered from an ‘accounting [in] history’ perspective – as well as different evidence (annual reports, governmental documents, sociological data), literature and historiography on the subject, the study investigates the influence of the initiative as a path to people’s emancipation built on an instrument (the television) typically associated with power. The theoretical framework relates to the power/empowerment effects of mass media and is founded on a critical discussion of the notion of Synopticon (that is a concomitant conception to that of the Panopticon). The study therefore contributes to the debate about the effects of mass media and fosters deeper understanding by contextualising accounting recordings within these social and historical frameworks.

‘Lanciando la voce’: Gianni Schicchi, ventriloquism, and Italian radio, 1925–1940

ABSTRACT This article contends that ventriloquism provides a powerful model for radio’s particular brand of acousmatic sound. In Italy, where early radio was devoted primarily to the dissemination of Italian identity through broadcasting Italian opera, the possibility of re-animating voices from the past was central to the medium’s political and cultural promise. Opera broadcasts therefore became stages for thinking through and exploiting the medium’s potential to transport and transplant the voice between bodies, not all of them human. In particular, the article examines broadcasts of Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, one of the most-transmitted operas during the first two decades of Italian radio, which thematized the primary issue at the heart of the medium: its ability (or inability) to transport the human voice from one place to another in the ultimate act of ventriloquism.

Speech Quality Improvement of Commercial Flat Screen TV-Sets

This work deals with the improvement of perceived speech quality of flat screen TV-sets on the various broadcasting platforms of the Italian radio and TV broadcasting company Rai. It is well known that the reduced thickness of flat TVs implied a degradation of the audio quality due to the adoption of miniaturised and cheap loudspeakers compared to the ones in the former Cathode Ray Tube televisions. The research activity gave rise to a Transfer Function (TF), which modifies in real-time the frequency spectrum of the audio signal from the TV station before the transmission to the broadcasting tower. In this way, the final users receive the processed audio signal without the need of additional hardware. A Digital Audio Optimizer dynamically equalizes the sound level, boosting the audio signal towards a flat frequency response without any increase in the loudness levels. Given that the majority of the broadcasted audio signals have speech or singing contents, the TF boosts the speech level in the frequency range that is more important for speech intelligibility, i.e., between 1 kHz and 4 kHz. Subjective evaluations of the proposed TF have been carried out in a laboratory in compliance with the standard ITU-R BS.1116. Three different commercial TV-set models, 30 audio excerpts from video tracks divided into the three genres Speech, Sing and Music, and Sport, and 72 subjects aged between 21 and 53 years, were part of the study. Overall, the perceived improvement in the audio quality compared to the non-processed signal was 25.3% on average among the three TV-set models and the three genres. In order to estimate the perceived improvement directly from the audio signal, regression analyses have been performed, which allow the estimation of subjective outcomes from objective indexes based on intensity features and frequency content of the signal, with standard errors between 10% and 14%.

Polskie głosy we włoskim eterze. Audycje polskojęzyczne w Radiu RAI w latach 1948–2007

Polish voices in the Italian ether. Polish language broadcasts on Radio RAI in the years 1948–2007 The article describes the history of the activity, the program and authors of programs in Polish broadcasted by Italian radio from the 1940s to the first decade of this century. These programs were directed to Poles living in the Apennine Peninsula, in their own homeland and in other countries, and at present a little knowledge about them is available from the preserved partial archival resources, the records in Italian Polonica and the interviews with some of their authors. Polish-language broadcasts on Radio RAI constitute an important part of Polonia and Polish-language media around the world.

Ancient Greek Myths in Romanian Opera. Pascal Bentoiu’s Jertfirea Ifigeniei [The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

Abstract Romanian composers’ interest in Greek mythology begins with Enescu’s peerless masterpiece – lyrical tragedy Oedipe (1921-1931). The realist-postromantic artistic concept is materialised in the insoluble link between text and music, in the original synthesis of the most expressive compositional means recorded in the tradition of the genre and the openness towards acutely modern elements of musical language. The Romanian opera composed in the knowledge of George Enescu’s score, which premiered in Bucharest in 1958, reflect an additional interest in mythological subject-matter in the poetic form of the ancient tragedies signed by Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles. Significant Romanian musical works written in the avant-garde period of 1960 to 1980 – Doru Popovici’s opera Prometeu, Aurel Stroe’s Oedipus at Colonus, Oresteia I – Agamemnon, Oresteia II – The Choephori, Oresteia III – The Eumenides, Pascal Bentoiu’s The Sacrifice of Iphigenia – to which titles of the contemporary art of the stage are added – Cornel Ţăranu’s Oreste & Oedip – propose new philosophical and artistic interpretations of the original myths. At the same time, the mentioned works represent reference points of the multiple and radical transformation of the opera genre in Romanian culture. Emphasising the epic character, a heightened chamber dimension and the alternative extrapolation of the elements in the syncretic complex, developing new modes of performance, of sonic and video transmission – are features of the new style of opera associated to the powerful and simple subject-matter of ancient tragedy. In this sense, radio opera The Sacrifice of Iphigenia (1968) is a significant step in the metamorphosis of the genre, its novel artistic value being confirmed by an important international distinction offered to composer Pascal Bentoiu – Prix Italia of the Italian Radio and Television Broadcasting Company in Rome. The poetic quality of the text quoted from the masterpiece of ancient theatre, Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis, the hymnic-oratory character of the music, the economy and expressive capacity of the compositional means configured in the relationship between voice, organ, percussion, electro-acoustic means – can be associated in interpreting the universal major theme: the necessity of virgin sacrifice in the process of durable construction.

Value of User-generated Content: Perceptions and Practices Regarding Social and Mobile Media in Two Italian Radio Stations

Despite continuous attempts in the mass media landscape to integrate new forms of two-way interaction, limits of interactive media have become a focal theme of criticism since two-way interaction has been introduced. Interviews with national and regional radio stations’ professionals have revealed divergent perceptions not only based on the various actors, but also based on national and regional practices. This study outlines lingering limitations of user-generated content implementation, based on conceptualizations of affordances of interactivity and organizational practices associated with it. I argue that the new platforms don’t necessarily eliminate the biases that have been addressed by the previous two-way communication.

„Klatka Ezry”. Między poezją a polityką

EZRA’S CAGE”. BETWEEN POETRY AND POLITICSEzra Pound 1885–1975 was, next to Thomas Stearns Eliot, the most prominent American poet of modernist. He was considered the creator of vorticism and imagism — modern trends in art and world culture. In his works he reached to different eras and cultural trends. He was as well fascinated by medieval Provençal, Spanish and Italian literature, and Japanese art of haiku. On his work also had an impact scholasticism, Confucianism and Far East literature. In addition to poetry, Pound was also involved in literary criticism, painting and sculpture, he wrote historiosophical es­says and dramas. The greatest fame brought him, however, written for many years, „Canto”. During his stay in the British Isles he also dealt with politics and economics. He was considered a supporter of the theory of Social Credit of Hugh Douglas Clifford, aBritish engineer and economic theorist. In the early twenties Pound went to Italy. Here he became fascinated with fascism and the person of Benitto Musollini. In his works including his poetic works appeared clear fascist and anti-Semitic accents. He criticized Jewish international financiers and banking critique of usury. During World War II he gave propaganda „talks” in the Italian radio. He praised the organization of the fascist state and fascism as an idea, and at the same time warned the threat from international Jewish conspiracy. His views meant that he was accused of collaboration and treason. He was arrested and imprisoned in the US prison camp near Genoa. He spent almost amonth in aclosed cage. During his stay in the camp he had nervous breakdown. After transportation to the United States for many years he was locked out in hospital for mentally ill. After leaving the hospital, he returned to public space. Still creative, he was nominated for the most prestigious literary awards. His works have been translated into many languages around the world, including Polish. He died in Italy in 1975.

The Double Birth of Wireless: Italian Radio Amateurs and the interpretative Flexibility of New Media

This article argues that the “double-birth” model proposed by Gaudreault and Marion provides a meaningful contribution to our understanding of how wireless telegraphy was developed and eventually re-invented during its early history. Drawing from a case study on the role played by Italian “radio amateurs” between 1900 and the early 1920s, we examine how such users shifted the medium's definition, legislation, and identity in the first years after the introduction of wireless technology. The emergence of new potential meanings and applications ultimately rebuilt and redefined this medium, creating space for innovation and multiple “births.”

No news from abroad: A comparative content analysis of news issues on Italian radio

This article examines radio information in Italy. A quantitative content analysis was performed of the news editions of the main national broadcasters that transmit mainly informational content (RTL 102.5, Radio24, RAI Radio1, Radio Capital), as well as a regional broadcaster with a strong focus on information (Radio Popolare) and a national network whose informational spaces are minimal due to target and format (Radio 105). The study sampled one week of broadcasting from these radio stations, for a total of 1008 hours, from 23 to 29 January 2012. Results show how information in Italy is highly focused on internal politics and news stories, pushing news from abroad to the fringes and confirming the image of a nation that is little interested in what occurs outside its borders.

Did the RAI buy it? The role and limits of American broadcasting in Italy in the Cold War

With a 20 million dollar budget and 1,900 staff, Voice of America broadcast in 45 different languages and Italy was one of its main targets. By looking into what went on behind the microphone, this article addresses the extent to which cultural change was planned and structured transnationally, the interactions and interdependencies operating between Washington and Rome, and how cooperation was achieved despite the fierce resistance of some of Radio Audizioni Italia's (RAI) executives. This allowed programmes produced in New York to air, and led to the launch of the most popular character of Italian radio and television: Mike Bongiorno.

Gesualdo da Venosa on the IVth Centenary of his Birth

Translation of one of Nino Pirrotta’s most important articles, Gesualdo da Venosa on the IVth Centenary of his Birth, which appeared in a relatively inaccessible publication and never in English translation, thus undeservedly limiting its circulation. The article was written to accompany the performance of compositions by Gesualdo and his contemporaries, broadcast over Italian radio in 1961, and is a recapitulation of Gesualdo’s life and a sensitive evaluation of his compositional priorities, poetic choices, and artistic achievements.

"The Art of Radia " Pino Masnata's Unpublished Gloss to the Futurist Radio Manifesto Introduction

"The Art of Radia" Pino Masnata's Unpublished Gloss to the Futurist Radio Manifesto Introduction Margaret Fisher (bio) Pino Masnata, co-author of the 1933 Futurist Radio Manifesto with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, wrote a second work, "Il Nome Radia," to explain the first.1 Masnata's gloss securely places the Radio Manifesto within the context of "new" physics—what Kenneth Ford calls "the physics of the very small" and "the physics of the very fast."2 The intent, however, is nothing less than to conquer the infinite cosmos with the acoustic art of radio and the exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum by Futurism's "new man." Introduction From 1925 to 1930, the directors of the new Italian Radio service, a triumvirate of top engineers from Fiat, Western Electric and Radiofono (the Marconi Co. Italian subsidiary), devoted a small number of program hours to experimental content focused chiefly on international developments in radio technology and information sharing, education, and music (including electronic music). Futurist radio broadcast was of a different stripe, and rarer still. The Fascist Party (PNF) in 1930 sought to marginalize these interests as so much "dilettantism."3 Then, in May 1933, the Italian visit of Joseph Goebbels to align Italian cultural policy with the centralization doctrine of his Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda had a chilling effect on all apolitical radio experimentation. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, [End Page 155] founder of Futurism and a member of the Royal Academy, was on a list of approved speakers vetted by the PNF, though his radio appearances were also limited. Against this background, Marinetti and Masnata published Manifesto futurista della radio in the Torino Gazzetta del Popolo on September 22, 1933, proposing a completely new radio sensibility resonant with a Futurist poetic on the one hand, and the latest quantum theories of matter and energy on the other. The Radio Manifesto appeared late in the chronology of Futurist manifestos; it was neither the first theoretical discussion of radio in Europe, nor in Italy. Before most countries had broadcast stations, Russian Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov predicted that radio waves would transport color, image, taste and odors in addition to sound. A decade later, Enzo Ferrieri, Artistic Director of Italian Radio, published Italy's first radio manifesto, Radio as a Creative Force, which introduced the seminal idea that the source of radio's true, paradoxical power derives from silence.4 Marinetti and Masnata built upon both of these concepts in the quest to conquer time and space, their given mandate from the Second Futurist Congress (Milan, 1933). Futurist focus on the machine turned to the science behind the machine: wave motion and the behavior of sub-atomic particles. The Futurist agenda for the "new man," whose renewed spirit would manifest as an extension of Futurist willpower and the evolution of the senses, moved to a new stage, the electromagnetic spectrum. The Manifesto denigrates a radio culture spawned by both producer and public; it denounces radio's adherence to realism and dismisses the reliance on studio production and light musical entertainment. Its twenty bullet points prescribe an entirely new radio art, "la radia"—neither cinema nor theater, a radio art independent of government control while fiercely loyal to the Fascist cause. On the one hand, we must shed our expectations of recovering a Futurist radio tied to the broadcast station; on the other, we can only speculate as to what is intended when the Manifesto hints at the dissolution of boundaries between the spiritual and material realms, the transference of thought and matter through vibration, and communication with the past. Cognizant of the difficulties presented by the Manifesto's cryptic twists and turns, Masnata as the Manifesto's principal author penned a 44-page gloss to the Manifesto, alternating between naming the inspirational sources behind the art of radia, and explaining what was meant. The work remained in Marinetti's possession, unpublished. Masnata's comments adhere to two overarching themes: 1) atomic theory and the electromagnetic spectrum and 2) the free-word style (paroliberismo)—the Futurist literary style that dispenses with syntax to experiment with disjunctive words (parole in libertà), onomatopoeia, signs, symbols, numbers, colors and shapes. Both themes support Masnata's premise: radio...

Intercultural Studies European Dramaturgy – Source for Romanian Music: Pascal Bentoiu's Operatic Trilogy

This paper aims to highlight the cultural and temporal relationship between writers and composers inspired by their theatrical works. Therefore, I will approach three of the most important operas of Pascal Bentoiu – one of the greatest Romanian composers – which are based on international-known literary masterpieces. Amorul doctor [The Love Doctor] is based on Molière's comedy L’amour médecin – which has been recorded by B.B.C and O.R.T.F. Jertfirea Ifigeniei [The Sacrifice of Iphigenia] is a radio opera based on Euripides's Iphigenia in Aulis – composition that received the “Italia” International Prize of Italian Radio and Television (RAI). Hamlet is an opera that synthesizes Shakespeare's drama, and received the international “Guido Valcarenghi” Composition Prize.Romanian music, even when approaches international subjects, has its specificity that makes it challenging to examine and to compare with other cultural products of different areas.To emphasize these aspects, I cover several points of view: historical research – the historical and social differences and connections between the music and the original opera –, score analysis and comparative analysis (between the original play and the libretto).To get the general context, we need to understand Pascal Bentoiu's operas place in the Romanian culture. Also, we will draw some general characteristic for Pascal Bentoiu's composition and musical thinking. Studying the original scores, I will uncover leitmotifs, demonstrating how they represent the character, concluding on how a Romanian musician approaches the dramaturgy. I will define a fascinating world we’ve already known through the literary texts – with a new face – generated by the music of a great composer

LIT: transcription, annotation, search and visualization tools for the Lexicon of the Italian Television

LIT (Lexicon of the Italian Television) is a project conceived by the Accademia della Crusca, the leading research institution on the Italian language, in collaboration with CLIEO (Center for theoretical and historical Linguistics: Italian, European and Oriental languages), with the aim of studying frequencies of the Italian vocabulary used in television. Approximately 170 hours of random television recordings acquired from the national broadcaster RAI (Italian Radio Television) during the year 2006 have been used to create the corpus of transcriptions. The principal outcome of the project is the design and implementation of an interactive system which combines a web-based video transcription and annotation tool, a full featured search engine, and a web application for data visualization with text-video syncing. Furthermore, the project is currently under deployment as a module of the larger national research funding FIRB 2009 VIVIT (Fondo di Investimento per la Ricerca di Base, Vivi l'Italiano), which will integrate its achievements and results within a semantic web infrastructure.

An unheard story? The challenge for radio studies in Italy

This article intends to provide a survey of the sparse research done on Italian radio, within a historical framework, and in particular to investigate the reasons why for so long it has been subjected to specific ‘high brow’ academic interests and areas. While in Britain and in the United States of America the debate about radio has been characterized most obviously by a perceived opposition between public service and commercial broadcasting, discussion in Italy has by contrast been framed first by an assumed dichotomy between literary, humanistic culture and broadcasting, and later between radio and television. Now deregulation, globalization and new technologies provide or require new models of communication, and are offering an opportunity for researchers to bridge this gap in a wider multidisciplinary and transnational academic community.

Italian Radio: history and historiography

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Telesoftware: Application in Scholastic and Vocational Training

Abstract This paper looks at the way RAI (Italian Radio) was used to transmit computer programs, and how it helped when the school leaving age was raised in Italy in the 1950s. It also looks at RAI's position vis‐a‐vis the teacher, in which they are joint leaders with complementary functions.

A Lesson Half‐Learned

“Yeats said to me that if they knew what we thought, they’d do away with us. They want their poets dead.” Ezra Pound took no pains to conceal what he thought and, sure enough, found himself at the age of sixty in the death-cells at Pisa—open-air cages, exposed to the elements, with only a pup-tent for shelter—facing the possibility of execution for treason as a result of his war-time broadcasts on Italian radio in support of Mussolini, Hitler and fascism. Heymann’s study’attempts to chart the precise evolution which led him there, and thence to thirteen years in St Elizabeth’s Mental Asylum, medically diagnosed at his trial as a man “afflicted with a paranoid state of psychotic proportions,” and judged “of unsound mind” by a jury which took three minutes to reach its verdict.Perhaps this is the significant phrase. Yeat’s remark was romantic braggadocio: for “do away” we should substitute “put away”. Pound’s treatment, after the initial atrocities of the Pisan cage, which induced an arguably long-imminent nervous breakdown, was “lenient” enough, in conventional terms—as if the authorities had almost conspired to avoid the embarrassment of a political trial for a man with such an international reputation and such influential friends. And to see Pound’s beliefs as a logical development from his starting-point was too risky an option in the war-ravaged Europe of 1945, where already former fascists were being rehabilitated to prop up the administration of the occupied zones, and fend off the risk of communist takeovers.