Radio in Italy beyond the Crisis: Toward New Content and Economic Revival

Radio, like all cultural industries, must be read in its dual nature as an “economic system of production and cultural producer of texts” and, therefore, the attempt to deal with its market impact cannot avoid highlighting its force, especially in the happy encounter between voices, sounds, noises, evoked images and the complex process of reception, processing, and adaptation of the message to the complexity of the human psyche, which is put to the test by a listening that envelops it in a manner that can also be almost totalizing. This potential cannibalization of attention has obviously been weakened by the digital revolution and by the panoply of sources of distraction from the so-called attention merchants. In fact, Italians never entertained a particularly intense relationship with the radio medium, preferring the more inva- sive, powerful, and seductive television as soon as the opportunity presented itself.