The Young Pope: Between Television and Celebrity Studies

By analysing the case of The Young Pope by Paolo Sorrentino, this article aims to consider how ce-lebrity culture, a well-known transnational phenomenon, is embodied in Italian media production. The television series, which was aired by Sky Atlantic starting on 21 October 2016, is a typical ex-ample of the circulation of movie stars towards television, thus implying a new kind of ‘celevision’. Moreover, media discourse about The Young Pope shows how the very concept of celebrity is con-structed. In this broad context, the article first analyses the textual structure of The Young Pope, looking for specific celebrity production features; it also considers media discourse through a quali-tative sample of press, TV and social media about the series before, during and shortly after its air-ing. The overall data thus describe the overlapping dimensions of transnational and national celebri-ty construction, while also pointing out the transmedia flow of celebrity culture.