The control that Silvio Berlusconi has over Italian television is often described as an ‘anomaly’ (Boogerd-Quaak 2004, § 60, Haraszti 2005, p. 2, Blatmann 2003). Although this description is useful for directing our attention to the case, it is unhelpful when it comes to explaining the how, what, and why of Berlusconi’s control.
And whilst Berlusconi’s position may be anomalous, it is certainly not unique. Berlusconi can be (and has been) compared to other media enterpreneurs who have entered politics, such as Ross Perot or Thaksin Shinawatra (Campus 2006, pp. 165-166, Caniglia 2000), though Berlusconi has been far more successful than either of these.
Berlusconi is not even the only Italian politician to own a television company: for a time Vittorio Cecchi Gori (son of the film producer Mario Cecchi Gori) was both a Senator for the Partito Popolare Italiano and owner of Telemontecarlo.
(Members of Berlusconi’s party attempted to make much of this last fact during debates concerning a law that would have required Berlusconi (but not Cecchi Gori) to sell his holdings. They did not succeed).
References:
Soria Blatmann. Italy: A Media Conflict of Interest: Anomaly in Italy. Technical
report, Reporters sans frontières, April 2003.
Johanna Boogerd-Quaak. Report on the risks of violation, in the EU and es-
pecially in Italy, of freedom of expression and information (Article 11(2) of
the Charter of Fundamental Rights). Report A5-0230/2004, European Parlia-
ment, 5 April 2004.
Donatella Campus. L’antipolitica al governo: De Gaulle, Reagan, Berlusconi. Il
mulino, 2006.
E. Caniglia. Berlusconi, Perot e Collor come political outsider: media, marketing e
sondaggi nella costruzione del consenso politico. Rubbettino, 2000.
Miklós Haraszti. Visit to Italy: the Gasparri Law: Observations and Recom-
mendations. Technical report, Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe, Representative on Freedom of the Media, 7 June 2005.
Comments 3
Uh? Had Ross Perot’s TVs a 50% audience share? Was the other 50% under the effective control of the political majority?
Posted 20 Oct 2008 at 1800 ¶As to Thaksin Shinawatra : 1 anomaly + 1 anomaly = 2 anomalies.
Thanks for the comment. The answer is no (but not for the reasons you think: Perot was in ICT, not TV). But political scientists proceed by comparing, and these were the two examples which came most easily to mind. Bloomberg would have been a better example than either. All four are instances of individuals who made their fortune in a field outside of politics, who used that money to buy large amounts of television time to promote their candidacies for political office, and who ignored (Bloomberg) old or created new parties (Perot, Berlusconi, Shinawatra). I’m just like an entymologist collecting members of this species…
Posted 20 Oct 2008 at 1918 ¶You are a scientist, and of course scientists like to find patterns where the layman sees anomalies. Anyway, I suspect that when people label Berlusconi as an “anomaly”, they don’t think he violates some universal law of society: he has money and TVs and, well, he uses them every time he can. What they think is that he is able to block important mechanisms of democracy - like freedom of the major news outlets from the direct influence of the exectuive power - while Perot or Bloomberg have never been able to do so.
Posted 20 Oct 2008 at 2228 ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[…] How anomalous is Berlusconi? | Chris Hanretty - Berlusconi can be (and has been) compared to other media enterpreneurs who have entered politics, such as Ross Perot or Thaksin Shinawatra (Campus 2006, pp. 165-166, Caniglia 2000), though Berlusconi has been far more successful than either of these. […]
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