Mona Lisa Covergirl: Popularised high culture in Italian Mass Culture 1950-70

Abstract

This thesis argues that high culture was integrated in distinctive ways into the new modern Italian identity and into Italy’s associated mass culture boom between 1950-70. It examines the presence and purpose of high culture in Italian mass culture, arguing that high culture formed an important part of both everyday life and mass culture, creating in the process meaningful and valued cultural content. The focus of the research is on the two mass culture formats that experienced a popular boom in this period: the illustrated news and photo-based magazines; and the Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) state-monopoly television channels. High culture coexisted and mingled with the emerging symbols of American consumerism in popular Italian magazines and television programs. Through words or pictures, readers could experience French, English and Russian literature in the weekly magazines such as Epoca and Tempo, and also in the fotoromanzo magazines, Bolero Film and Le Grandi Firme, as publishing houses sought new reader markets. The state-run broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) also developed an educational strategy for disseminating popularised high culture, not solely with televised adaptations of literary works and opera music, but also through popular quiz and variety shows based on high culture content that surreptitiously introduced art, music and literature into the daily lives of its citizens. The thesis focuses on cultural content and its reception, arguing for the symbolic, entertainment and educational importance to readers and viewers of popularised high culture through case studies from popular magazines, television programs and advertising based on audience research.