RICERCA ITALIANA     

Research program

Media and Generations in Italian Society

University Co-ordinator

Università degli Studi di BERGAMO - LETTERE, ARTI E MULTIMEDIALITÀ - ()

Research Unit Leader

Francesca Pasquali

Description

As highlighted in the scientific framework of the research project, the very concept of generation is variously applied to the cultural field, such varied application reflecting the multifarious nature of “generation” in a sociological perspective.
The task of the Bergamo research unit will be understanding how the idea of generation works within the area of cultural production and consumption, starting from an analysis of cultural artefacts such as literature, cinema, comics, music etc., so as to articulate a typology addressing the different forms of relation between generation and the cultural field. The first research step will therefore be the formal and thorough definition of a typological comprehension of the modes and distinctive traits – both in the commonsensical deployment of “generation”, and within critical discourse – in which the “generational” is applied to cultural artefacts.
The second research aim will be the mapping of the cultural (literary, cinematic and music) consumption within a specific age cohort. The choice of investigating one single generation in depth is due to the persuasion that the idea of generation is not only multifarious and complex, but also extremely dynamic in itself. By addressing one single cohort it might be possible to highlight the complex interaction between generational production, consumption and imaginary on the one side, and issues such as historical timeframe, personal biography and the intergenerational dialectic on the other side.
Within the four cohorts taken as the broad object of the national research network, the local research unit will privilege a desk analysis of a series of cultural products variously “produced” and “consumed” by the specific cohort of those who were born during the mid- to late Sixties. Such choice is justified by different reasons, one significant reason being the fact that this cohort was the first generation to be clearly defined by its consumption (e.g., MTV Generation) and tagged by means of one cultural product (i.e., Douglas Coupland’s Generation X) so as to name it.
Besides, as the title of Douglas Coupland’s novel indicates, the chosen cohort represents a generation in which the “we are”, the statement of identity, is extremely fluid and little defined in its being the result of the merging and crossing of other discourses, largely negative ones, produced by other cohorts. This cohort also places its formative years in a time when a series of traumatic experiences, relevant fractures and watersheds, both in cultural and media history, took place: on an international scale these were the years of Thatcherism, Reaganism, and the fall of the Berlin wall; in Italian history, these were the years of the Moro murder and later on of mass Mafia slaughters and of denunciations of political corruption, but also of the sexual “counter-revolution”, of the widespread participation to political issues as exemplified by the ecological movement following catastrophic events such as the Seveso pollution in the mid-Seventies and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the mid-Eighties. Also, these were the years witnessing the diffusion of computers, and the success of private TV channels, radically signposting Italian media history.
Another element supporting the choice of such cohort as a case test enabling the analysis of the multifarious nature of the generation concept resides in the fact that only now – only now that people belonging to that cohort have emerged to the scene of cultural production (both in creative roles, and as decision-makers orienting culture industries) – it becomes possible to identify a “self-produced” generational discourse (whether apologetic or condemning, mythologizing or rationalizing, is of little consequence here) on the generation itself. And finally, this cohort plays a central role in the consumption of significant portions of the contemporary cultural market.
In the wake of such elements, it seems quite interesting to deploy a desk analysis of the relation between the cultural consumption of those who are in their thirties today (and who are currently engaged in their self-definition as a generation) on the one side, and the cultural consumption of those teenagers who, back in the Eighties, were defined by grown-ups as “Generation X” on the other side.
In terms of the research plan, the Bergamo research unit plans to attend to the following steps: 1) the survey of Generation X consumptions in the Eighties, by gathering quantitative data related, for instance, to products belonging to the teenagers market, and to highly successful products (both in terms of their sales and of their symbolic value), but also related to “imposed” consumption (say, in school syllabi) and to those products that more directly staged a generational discourse; 2) the mapping, by means of quantitative indicators, of media and cultural consumption characterizing people who are today in their thirties; 3) an inquiry, by means of some relevant case studies, meant to trace potential recursive or differentiating elements as regards themes, imaginaries, styles, values, etc., and to identify their role in the self-definition of a generational identity as it emerges in the cultural field, so as to produce a persistence, conspicuousness and consistency defined both within the age group itself, and against other age groups.
The research analysis, placing itself within the tradition of cultural studies, will largely take into account Italian, British and American products, for these were the main cultural forms available at the time. As regards specific products addressed as case studies, their analysis will be conducted in a socio-semiotic framework.
The research will be conducted both individually by the unit and in coordination with other units (in particular with unit III, which is also extremely desk-oriented in its analysis). The research units will coordinate their work with meetings and with videoconference sessions. More specifically, there will be three institutional meetings:
a) firstly, a meeting of theoretical confrontation as regards categories and bibliographic resources; b) secondly, a workshop gathering the research unit but also other researchers in the field; c) finally, an international conference meant to expose and confront the research results.