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Scenarios for the digital age: Convergence, personalization, exclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2016

David Forgacs
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Summary

The new media system that has emerged worldwide since the early 1990s is characterized by increasing use of digital technologies in every area and convergence between once distinct media. In Italy there have been a number of national variations on this global pattern: relative weakness of state regulation, a move away from the dominance of the system by ‘generalist’ television, a high rate of cellular phone use and a slower than average growth of Internet use. As far as consumption is concerned, the most common categories used to describe the emergent system—personalization of media, increased individual choice and mobility—do manage to capture some important aspects, in Italy as elsewhere, but they obscure others, notably the structural constraints limiting individual choice, the formation of new media microcommunities and, conversely, the exclusion of particular groups of citizens from full participation in the new system.

Il nuovo sistema dei media emerso a livello mondiale a partire dai primi anni ‘90 si basa sulla diffusione di tecnologie digitali (cioè a base informatica) e su una sempre maggiore convergenza tra mezzi una volta distinti. In Italia si sono verificate alcune variazioni nazionali rispetto a questo modello globale: la relativa debolezza del regolamento statale, il superamento del dominio assoluto della televisione generalista, l'uso molto elevato di telefonini e la crescita più contenuta dei collegamenti ad Internet. Quanto al consumo, le categorie descrittive più diffusamente utilizzate—personalizzazione dei media, accresciuta scelta e mobilità—riescono si a cogliere alcuni aspetti importanti del nuovo sistema ma ne nascondo altri, soprattutto i limiti strutturali che si impongono alla ‘scelta individuale', la formazione di nuove microcomunità attraverso i media e viceversa l'esclusione di determinati gruppi di cittadini dalla piena utenza dei new media.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , November 2001, pp. 129 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

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