Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies - Volume 14, Issue 1, 2026

This article examines the use of sound and the role of the human voice in Vittorio De Seta’s celebrated series of ethnographic short films on traditional labour in southern Italy. Made in the 1950s, these films constituted a radical departure from established documentary practice by virtue of their employment of cinemascope and technicolour as well as their innovative approach to on-location sound. Critics have sometimes taken issue with De Seta’s aestheticization and idealization of the predicament of his working-class subjects. Yet, against the frequent impression that their painterly and poetic visuals are chiefly responsible for this idealization, I argue that the films’ sonic dimension displays a higher degree of mediation and abstraction, especially with regard to voices. Using De Seta’s films as a case study, I also venture into a broader discussion of audio-visual techniques in non-fiction cinema and their power to manipulate pro-filmic reality.

Manfredo Tafuri’s Marxist architectural theory provides a lens for analysing social dynamics in Dino Risi's 1959 comedy Il vedovo (The Widower) and Luigi Comencini's episode ‘L'ascensore’ (‘The Elevator’) in Strange Occasion from 1972. Tafuri’s concern with history, capital and modernity aligns with the commedia all’italiana’s critique of consumerism and the spectacle of wealth. In The Widower, the Torre Velasca symbolizes social aspiration and collapse, while in ‘The Elevator’, spatial confinement reveals tensions of gender and religion. Drawing on Tafuri and Debord, in this article I argue that both films use architecture and vertical space to question post-war ideals of progress, confronting viewers with the contradictions of Italy’s economic boom and cultural modernity.

This article examines Italy’s post-war anti-comics movement as a significant example of moral panic and cultural regulation. Adopting an interdisciplinary framework grounded in moral panic theory, media ecology and generational consciousness, the analysis reconstructs how comics came to be framed as threats to youth morality and social order between 1949 and 1962. Through historical discourse analysis of newspapers, parliamentary records and audio-visual materials, the article identifies moral entrepreneurs and media amplifiers who portrayed comics as deviant media forms. Focusing on key episodes – the Borgo Panigale murder case, the political responses from Christian Democrat and Communist Parties and publishers’ adoption of the Codice di Garanzia Morale – the study reveals comics as symbolic battlegrounds in Italy’s modernization process. Rather than passive targets of censorship, comics emerge as active agents within a broader conflict involving generational tensions, pedagogical anxieties and shifting cultural hierarchies, highlighting how media panics reflect deeper structural transformations within society.

This article explores how second-generation Italian rappers use social media and music videos as sites and sights of postcolonial resistance, engaging in both identity construction and counter-narrative production. Since its rise to popularity in the early 2000s, social media has been crucial for these artists’ career development and promotion, self-expression and communication with fans, the media, institutions and other artists. Music videos, uploaded to YouTube and cross-posted across platforms, serve as visual narratives that foreground their lived experiences and perspectives not widely represented in Italian media. Through an analysis of various artists’ social media and music video practices, I argue that these forms of digital media are central to a process called ‘rapping back’, through which they decolonize Italian identity and take back the narrative from those in the Italian media, political system and society that seek to other them.

This article examines the role of media archives from Rai and Mediaset in shaping contemporary Italian digital culture, focusing on archive-based programmes that incorporate memetic content. The article introduces the term jumblecasts to describe entertainment television programmes that remix and recontextualize archival material. Through an analysis of Mai dire and Blob, the article argues that these programmes function as precursors to digital meme production, embodying the processes of selection, remixing and retention. The article investigates how these shows contribute to Italian meme culture and examines the role of digital accessibility to archival content in the proliferation of memes. Additionally, it explores the influence of cinema on the construction of jumblecasts and their use of bad texts, demonstrating how recontextualized material persists in cultural memory and circulates online. This article contributes to the understanding of the intersection between television, cinema and archival practices in the context of Italian digital culture.

Review of: My Floríta, Manuela Filomena (dir.) (2025), United States: Volpe Media International

Review of: Spaghetti Sissies: Queering Italian American Media, Julia Heim and Sole Anatrone (eds) (2023)

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 284 pp.,

ISBN 978-3-03110-196-0, h/bk, USD 139.99

Review of: Italian Contemporary Screen Performers: Training, Production, Prestige, Luca Barra, Cristina Formenti, Mariapaola Pierini and Francesco Pitassio (eds) (2024)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 303 pp.,

ISBN 978-3-03167-309-2, USD 59.99

Review of: Call Me by Your Name: Perspectives on the Film, Edward Lamberti and Michael Williams (eds) (2024)

Bristol: Intellect, 350 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-78938-942-5, h/bk, USD 149.95

Review of: Maggiorate: Divismo e celebrità nella nuova Italia, Federico Vitella (2024)

Venice: Marsilio, 313 pp.,

ISBN 978-8-82978-948-1, p/bk, GBP 32.00

Review of: Intermedia in Italy: From Futurism to Digital Convergence, Clodagh Brook, Florian Mussgnug and Giuliana Pieri (2024)

Oxford: Legenda, 233 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-83954-088-2, h/bk, GBP 95.00

Review of: Visioni a Sud: La narrazione audiovisiva della Campania: sguardi turistici e idee di sostenibilità, Lucia di Girolamo (2024)

Naples: Liguori, 156 pp.,

ISBN 978-8-82077-050-1, p/bk, GBP 21.85

Review of: La diva madre: Saggi su maternità e divismo nel cinema italiano, Maria Elena D’Amelio (2024)

Milano: Meltemi, 145 pp.,

ISBN 979-1-25615-055-7, p/bk, GBP 14.00

Review of: Film Exhibition: The Italian Context, Damien Pollard and Edward Bowen (eds) (2024)

Cambridge: Legenda, 394 pp.,

ISBN 978-8-39541-999-5, h/bk, GBP 95.00

Review of: Napoli/New York, Andata E Ritorno: La Comunita Italiana Dello Spettacolo E La Nascita Del Cinema Italoamericano, Giuliana Muscio (2024)

Napoli: La Valle del Tempo, 324 pp.,

ISBN 979-1-28199-307-5, p/bk, GBP 18.00

Review of: Donne nella storia dei media: Autrici, artiste, influencer, tra ribalta e retroscena, Paola Panarese, Anna Lucia Natale (eds) (2024)

Milan: Franco Angeli, 230 pp.,

ISBN 978-8-83516-339-8, p/bk, GBP 32.00