Sociology and Cultural Industry Studies in Italy: Media, Consumption, Creativity

The history and evolution of Sociology in Italy have a particular path which, from the second post-war period onwards, has as its objective the task of promoting the growth of the country’s social culture, i.e. strengthening the connection between social science, scientific knowledge, culture, and daily life. Between difficulties and enthusiasm, the discipline faced significant changes towards modernization that also crossed Italy in the same period: the territory, the productive activities, the national life, the lifestyles of the Italians, and their consumption changed. Since the 1960s onwards, Sociology has taken its place in the country’s daily life as a "cultural form of a wider culture" even though it did not represent a hegemonic discipline in the Italian panorama. In the same years, the development of the Italian cultural industry and the evolution of the culture market undergo a strong acceleration, assuming a central role in the social life of Italians and a guiding function in the elaboration of the collective imagination. In this context, the contribution intends to focus attention on the cultural studies that have developed at a national level following two main areas of development: 1) the emergence of the media and 2) the multiple nature of cultural products and material culture in the Italian scenario from the economic boom to nowadays.