The Great Pioneer of Entertainment

Many people are still convinced that on 27 March 1994, millions of Italians voted for him because they had been ‘brainwashed’ by television. The former Italian Communist Party’s rendezvous with history – that is, with government – was merely postponed by a couple of years. Entrusting themselves to an amateur who left Palazzo Chigi within a few months—and who, moreover, was an associate of the scapegoat of a bygone era—is something only a hypnotised people could be forgiven for. That is why it is above all his critics who see Silvio Berlusconi as the Great Forerunner of everything they truly dislike: from Donald Trump to TikTok (Tak) dances. The idea is always the same: the latest arrival on the media market – yesterday it was television, today it is social media and artificial intelligence – moulds the voter in its own image. In the 1930s, the radio was accused of encouraging a passive attitude and stifling critical thinking. “Television Italy is a sub-Italy, a second-class Italy,” declared Alberto Moravia in 1959, when there was still only one TV channel. When ‘Il Cavaliere’ launched Canale 5, the intellectual class did not need to switch on the television to know what it would be showing. The argument was already prepared, even before it was levelled at commercial television. The original sin lies in the adjective: ‘commercial’. Hostility towards private broadcasters is always explained in this way: they are funded by advertising; advertising follows the popularity of programmes; ergo, they will have every incentive to give people what they want, rather than what it is ‘right’ for them to watch. Giovanni Sartori wanted to free broadcasters ‘from the tyranny of Auditel’. Karl Popper, in Television: A Bad Teacher, quoted: ‘We must offer people what people want.’ It is the same criticism levelled today at algorithms that reward whatever keeps the user engaged.

Then, as now, with the aim of regulating content, children were used as human shields. Popper was concerned about the effects of violence on young children and convinced that television carried more weight than the family and school. In the 1980s, there was a campaign against Goldrake and Captain Harlock, prime examples of television violence. According to Sartori, a child educated solely by what they see ‘is reduced to being a man who does not read’, a softie condemned to a life of video games (whose technical and narrative complexity would merit a whole other discussion). These are the very same arguments we hear from those who would like to ban social media for minors. Arguments that are convenient for families: who are, as if by magic, excluded from any discussion on the education of young people.

The Fininvest networks, now known as Mediaset, are largely the result of ‘Il Cavaliere’s’ insights, as well as his ingenious tinkering with relationships. For this reason, when he entered the fray, it seemed natural for Raimondo Vianello – without even being prompted by his boss – to come out in ‘Pressing’ with an endorsement. All hell broke loose. If even ‘an elegant gentleman’ behaves like this, imagine the rest. In the subsequent 1995 referendum campaign, for the opponents of private television, the fact that Vianello, Mike Bongiorno, Iva Zanicchi, Rita Dalla Chiesa, Ambra (and even the ‘Rai man’ Pippo Baudo) took sides demonstrated that the television audience was a flock that followed its idols. They were not yet referred to as “influencers,” but that is precisely what they were, and the attacks against them closely resemble those seen today.

According to Norberto Bobbio, “the society created by television is, by its very nature, a right-wing society”. Something similar is said today about social media, looking at Trump’s America and Elon Musk’s X. Commercial television yesterday and social media today do the same thing: they tap into a need for entertainment. The technological possibilities are changing. In the beginning, to sell advertising to companies that had never bought it before, ‘Il Cavaliere’ and his team even agreed to be paid only once the effects were visible in the companies’ turnover; today we know exactly how many clicks an advert has generated.

Driven by his own interests, Berlusconi made television viewing a little less passive: with the remote control, viewers can direct their own attention. The options were not yet in the millions as on social media, but they were double what they had been before: from two channels (Rai Tre was launched in 1979) to six. His opponents were nostalgic for the singular spectacle of Mass with the pulpit and the congregation merely responding to the celebrant. Berlusconi was the Italian champion of a technological revolution that brought a previously unknown freedom of choice. The battle waged against him was a rearguard action by those who, to quote Fedele Confalonieri, after the ‘ethical state’ yearned for the ‘aesthetic state’. Our screens – ever smaller – have protected us from the ‘aesthetic state’ and continue to do so.