An unheard story? The challenge for radio studies in Italy

This article intends to provide a survey of the sparse research done on Italian radio, within a historical framework, and in particular to investigate the reasons why for so long it has been subjected to specific ‘high brow’ academic interests and areas. While in Britain and in the United States of America the debate about radio has been characterized most obviously by a perceived opposition between public service and commercial broadcasting, discussion in Italy has by contrast been framed first by an assumed dichotomy between literary, humanistic culture and broadcasting, and later between radio and television. Now deregulation, globalization and new technologies provide or require new models of communication, and are offering an opportunity for researchers to bridge this gap in a wider multidisciplinary and transnational academic community.