The Impact of Media Concentration on Professional ... - OSCE

portfolio. In addition, as democratically elected Prime Minister,he holds sway over Italy’s three public service TV broadcastingchannels. Adding Mr. Berlusconi’s stakes in advertising,newspapers, news magazines, book publishing, video andDVD renting chains, cinemas, theatre, insurance, supermarketchains and so on, it becomes immediately obvious that theItalian democracy is living an experience that no other Westerndemocracy has ever had to tackle.Yet, Italian media concentration did not start with Mr.Berlusconi nor has he had, at least in the daily newspaper sector,any major responsibility for critical concentration movements.<strong>The</strong> country’s main newspapers have long been in thehands, not <strong>of</strong> publishers in the classical sense, but Italy’s majorindustrial groups, who have at times been openly hostile toMr. Berlusconi’s political ambitions.Even though Italy has daily newspapers with long-standingtraditions like the Milanese based Corriere della Sera, no realnewspaper culture comparable to Northern European countrieshas ever taken root. Political unification in 1871 didn’tcreate a culturally and linguistically unified nation. At that timeonly 20 per cent <strong>of</strong> the Italian populace spoke the dialect <strong>of</strong>Tuscany, which today is considered to be the purest spokenItalian. Illiteracy was rampant until after World War II. Afterthe tragic experiences with fascism Italy was politically dividedlike no other Western European nation.Part <strong>of</strong> this ideological divide was the conviction <strong>of</strong> left wingpeople that quality dailies belonged to the “cultural conservativeelites’’. Most other papers were – and are – politically openly affiliatedto political parties and/or ideologically driven groups.Taking into account that 1961 was the first year in the history<strong>of</strong> unified Italy when government allocated more moneyto education then to the military, modern Italy owes its cultural150 THE IMPACT OF MEDIA CONCENTRATION ON PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM