News Consumption in Italy in an Era of Crisis and Innovation: The Decline of Print and TV News

The article focuses on the contemporary crisis within Italian journalism against the backdrop of the hybrid media system and the global proliferation of disinformation strategies. Over the past five years, a new stage of information consumption has been evolving in Italy. This transformation is driven not only by the fact that social networks have become fundamental sources of news, even though they often present isolated, biased, or fake content, but also due to the decline in the use of traditional news channels. The contemporary crisis of Italian news media will be discussed through the presentation of relevant recent changes in Italians’ information habits. This aims to connect these shifts to the traditional peculiarities that still impact the modern equilibrium between production and consumption, thereby shaping a new scenario for journalism

Le populisme dans le nouvel espace public médiatisé. La relation entre politique et journalisme: l’anomalie italienne

The paper will focus on the transformation of Italian political journalism and on the development of television market model in the last two decades, which brought about the success of the entertainment frame in political news. However, from the traditional advocacy journalism, Italian infotainment developed in a very peculiar direction, connected to this economic and cultural context. From the half of the 19th century, the Italian journalism was an instrument of political participation: reporters were members of a party, defended a political perspective or, which is even more dangerous, remained parallel to power. Newspapers have been used as microphones of politics, to offer visibility to leaders, without giving voice to readers. Only in the 90s the emergence of commercial television, the success of its language and formats, as well as the private TV news, made a radical change possible (Castronovo & Tranfaglia, 1994; Murialdi, 2006; Rizzuto, 2009). We can assert that an Anglo-Saxon news model, based on the watchdog ideal of neutrality and control of politicians, affirmed in a peculiar mix with the commercial perspective. For the first time in Italy, the market became important in news but with traditional elements still existing: according to Schudson (2003), in the market model, news is a product and must be sold to an audience. Nowadays Italian political journalism presents some peculiarities deriving from its parallelism to politics as well as the recent success of infotainment and the new central role of social media which are changing the traditional communication flow from leaders to voters. In two decades traditional mediation role of journalists almost disappeared: Movimento 5 Stelle is the most evident example of a new way of communicating without any form of informative mediation, which encourages populist forms of building political realty. A light use of news, focused on emotions and conflict to avoid complexity, is now more important than the traditional moral and cultural duty to be an informed citizen.Cet article traite de la transformation du journalisme politique italien et du développement du modèle de marché au cours des deux dernières décennies, ce qui a imposé la logique du spectacle dans les nouvelles politiques. Malgré cela, à partir du journalisme traditionnel, l’infotainment italien s’est développé dans une direction particulière liée à ce contexte économique et culturel. À partir de la moitié du XIXe siècle, l’information a constitué, en Italie, un instrument de participation politique : les journalistes étaient membres d’un parti et défendaient une perspective politique, ou, ce qui est encore plus dangereux, s’alignaient sur le pouvoir. Les journaux ont souvent été utilisés comme des microphones pour offrir de la visibilité aux leaders politiques, sans donner la parole aux lecteurs. Pendant les années 90, l’émergence de la télévision commerciale, le succès de son langage a rendu possible un changement radical. On peut affirmer qu’un modèle d’information anglo-saxon, fondé sur l’idéal de neutralité et de contrôle des hommes politiques, s’est alors affirmé, combiné avec une perspective commerciale. Pour la première fois en Italie, les journaux sont devenus un marché important, avec des éléments traditionnels : Schudson a souligné que dans le modèle de marché, la nouvelle est « un produit » qui doit être vendu au public. Aujourd’hui, le journalisme politique italien présente certaines particularités qui découlent de son alignement traditionnel sur les partis, du récent succès du journalisme-spectacle et du nouveau rôle, central, des médias sociaux, qui modifient le flux de communication traditionnel leaders-électeurs. Movimento 5 Stelle est l’exemple le plus frappant d’une nouvelle façon de communiquer sans aucune forme de médiation informative, ce qui encourage les formes populistes de construction de la réalité politique. Une signification légère, soft, donnée aux informations, fondée sur les émotions et les conflits pour éviter la complexité est plus importante que le devoir moral et culturel traditionnel incombant à tout citoyen de se tenir informé.Libro publicado gracias al apoyo de la Facultad de Filología de la Universidad de Łódź, del Instituto de Estudios Románicos y de Stowarzyszenie Nauczycieli Akademickich na Rzecz Krzewienia Kultury Języków Europejskic

Il coverage dei naufragi dei migranti e delle catastrofi. Newsmedia e attori istituzionali nei casi eccezionali

L'articolo analizza i circuiti comunicativi che si attivano nel caso di catastrofi naturali o eventi drammatici e imprevedibili come i naufragi dei migranti nel Mediterraneo, rilevandone le anomalie nei processi di newsmaking

Reality versus emotions in italian journalism.

Italian infotainment, with the recent shift “from information to sensation” has made the question of the ethical dimension of newsmedia even more problematic, showing unforeseen consequences of the show perspective in newscoverage. In the paper the theme of social responsibility of the journalistic media is presented in connection with the recent changes of the digital media and their blurring of real and fiction, as well as of languages and narrative styles. A critical perspective of the “Italian declination” of show-journalism will focus on the relationship between vision of the sufferings offered to distracted viewers of planetary audiences and their concrete possibilities of a consequent action.El infoentretenimiento italiano, tras el reciente giro “de la información a la sensación” ha hecho aún más problemática la cuestión de la dimensión ética de los medios de comunicación, mostrando consecuencias imprevistas de la perspectiva del espectáculo en la cobertura de noticias. En el artículo se trata el tema de la responsabilidad social de los medios periodísticos en relación con los cambios recientes de los medios digitales y su confusión entre realidad y ficción, así como entre lenguajes y estilos narrativos. Una perspectiva crítica de la “declinación italiana” del periodismo televisivo se centrará en la relación entre la visión de los sufrimientos que se le orece a los distraídos espectadores del público planetario y sus concretas posibilidades de una acción consecuente

Skeletal muscle myopenia in mice model of bile duct ligation and carbon tetrachloride-induced liver cirrhosis

Skeletal muscle myopathy is universal in cirrhotic patients, however, little is known about the main mechanisms involved. The study aims to investigate skeletal muscle morphological, histological, and functional modifications in experimental models of cirrhosis and the principal molecular pathways responsible for skeletal muscle myopathy. Cirrhosis was induced by bile duct ligation (BDL) and carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) administration in mice. Control animals (CTR) underwent bile duct exposure or vehicle administration only. At sacrifice, peripheral muscles were dissected and weighed. Contractile properties of extensor digitorum longus (EDL) were studied in vitro. Muscle samples were used for histological and molecular analysis. Quadriceps muscle histology revealed a significant reduction in cross-sectional area of muscle and muscle fibers in cirrhotic mice with respect to CTR. Kinetic properties of EDL in both BDL and CCl4 were reduced with respect to CTR; BDL mice also showed a reduction in muscle force and a decrease in the resistance to fatigue. Increase in myostatin expression associated with a decrease in AKT-mTOR expressions was observed in BDL mice, together with an increase in LC3 protein levels. Upregulation of the proinflammatory citochines TNF-a and IL6 and an increased expression of NF-kB and MuRF-1 were observed in CCl4 mice. In conclusion, skeletal muscle myopenia was present in experimental models of BDL and CCl4-induced cirrhosis. Moreover, reduction in protein synthesis and activation of protein degradation were the main mechanisms responsible for myopenia in BDL mice, while activation of ubiquitin-pathway through inflammatory cytokines seems to be the main potential mechanism involved in CCl4 mice

Probability of Potential Collision for Aircraft Encounters in High Density Airspaces

Failure Management consists of a set of functions that enable the detection, isolation, and correction of anomalous behavior in a monitored system trying to prevent system failures. An effective failure management should monitor the system looking for errors and faults that could end up in a failure and overcome such issues when they arise

Respiratory dysfunction by AFG3L2 deficiency causes decreased mitochondrial calcium uptake via organellar network fragmentation

The mitochondrial protein AFG3L2 forms homo-oligomeric and hetero-oligomeric complexes with paraplegin in the inner mitochondrial membrane, named m-AAA proteases. These complexes are in charge of quality control of misfolded proteins and participate in the regulation of OPA1 proteolytic cleavage, required for mitochondrial fusion. Mutations in AFG3L2 cause spinocerebellar ataxia type 28 and a complex neurodegenerative syndrome of childhood. In this study, we demonstrated that the loss of AFG3L2 in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) reduces mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake capacity. This defect is neither a consequence of global alteration in cellular Ca2+ homeostasis nor of the reduced driving force for Ca2+ internalization within mitochondria, since cytosolic Ca2+ transients and mitochondrial membrane potential remain unaffected. Moreover, experiments in permeabilized cells revealed unaltered mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake speed in Afg3l2−/− cells, indicating the presence of functional Ca2+ uptake machinery. Our results show that the defective Ca2+ handling in Afg3l2−/− cells is caused by fragmentation of the mitochondrial network, secondary to respiratory dysfunction and the consequent processing of OPA1. This leaves a number of mitochondria devoid of connections to the ER and thus without Ca2+ elevations, hampering the proper Ca2+ diffusion along the mitochondrial network. The recovery of mitochondrial fragmentation in Afg3l2−/− MEFs by overexpression of OPA1 rescues the impaired mitochondrial Ca2+ buffering, but fails to restore respiration. By linking mitochondrial morphology and Ca2+ homeostasis, these findings shed new light in the molecular mechanisms underlining neurodegeneration caused by AFG3L2 mutation