Global Italy: Media, identity and the future of the nation-state

This dissertation explores transformations in the structure of the Italian media policy, paying particular attention to public broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) and its operations outside of Italy since the end of the Second World War. Through an analysis of government documents and broadcast programming, I look at how the links between cultural production, state institutions, the rights of citizens, and the economy are reorganized in relation to discourses about Italians living outside of Italy. Part of the reorganization that has taken place over the past fifty years has involved a re-conception of what it means to be 'Italian' both in terms of legal rights and ideas of belonging. It argues that these transformations, often attributed exclusively to processes of economic globalization, cannot be understood properly unless placed in the context of shifts in the meaning of Italian identity, the practice of citizenship, and media consumption. This project explores how this ensemble of changes relates to broader shifts in state-form globally and begins to evaluate how notions of identity and agency, in other words the ways in which people live and understand themselves in the 'global' era.