Italy's television, Italy's democracy

That the Italian elections of 2001 were won by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s biggest media mogul, surprised no one. Berlusconi’s media muscle was a major factor in his success, but not in the way that many might imagine. There is little evidence that Berlusconi used his three television networks to broadcast overt propaganda, still less that the Italian electorate are so unsophisticated as to be bludgeoned into supporting him through saturation of their TV screens. In fact, the impact of Berlusconi’s media empire was both less obvious and far more significant than that.

Berlusconi has transformed and reshaped the political landscape in Italy, creating a new form of political institution – rooted in his media empire – to replace the old parties of the right. Ironically, in trying to make Berlusconi’s media power the central issue of the campaign, the left fell straight into his trap. In what happened in Italy in 2001, there is a major lesson to be learnt about the real power – behind the scenes and TV screens – that comes with concentrated media ownership.

No significant bias on TV

The personal figure of Silvio Berlusconi dominated the Italian election campaign. It also dominates discussion around the world of the significance of the Italian election, and has led to over-simplification and misunderstanding. The most common misunderstanding concerns the support that Berlusconi receives from the networks he owns and, more generally, the role of television in the election campaign.

Berlusconi owns three television networks: Canale 5, Rete 4, Italia 1. Canale 5 is the only network with a significant audience share, the second in Italy after the main public channel, RAI 1. The main edition of Canale 5’s news program has an average audience of about 7 million viewers, compared with RAI’s 8 million viewers of TG 1. The main edition of Rete 4’s newscast has about 1.5 million viewers, while the audience of Italia 1 is somewhat smaller. The data collected by the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (Authority for Communication Guarantees) show clearly that Canale 5 and Italia 1 respected the criteria of pluralism in electoral coverage, giving practically equal time to both Forza Italia (Berlusconi’s party) and the coalition, Ulivo, run by his opponent Rutelli.

Rete 4, on the other hand, was indeed biased in favor of Berlusconi. Overall coverage of the actions and positions of the leader of Forza was definitely superior to the coverage of the other leaders, and the time directly conceded to Berlusconi to explain his point of view showed an even more dramatic imbalance. But we must keep in mind not only that Rete 4 has a relatively small audience, but also that it is an older, female audience – an audience largely made up of voters already in favour of Berlusconi. RAI, meanwhile, had something of an anti-Berlusconi slant.

It should be added that Italian law forbids the broadcasting of paid political ads on television. All in all, it does not seem plausible that television broadcasting was the decisive factor in Berlusconi’s victory.

But… behind the scenes

This does not, however, mean that Berlusconi’s position as Italy’s dominant TV mogul is irrelevant to his political success. Much of what matters in Italian politics goes on behind the scenes rather than in the open public sphere.

Berlusconi’s television empire counted more as a resource for negotiation and bargaining with other political, economic and social actors than as an instrument for propaganda. At the hub of an empire with tentacles reaching across multiple media and financial services, Berlusconi clearly had resources unavailable to any other politician.

To some extent, this is a result simply of the sheer economic size of his holdings. His personal fortune alone could bankroll an election campaign. We still do not know exactly what economic resources he used, and whether they were compatible with what is allowed by law. But it is crucial that Berlusconi’s empire is based in television and in the mass media more generally: television does have a central role in modern economic, political and social life – though in a more subtle way than many commentaries on Berlusconi suggest.

Staff transfers: business to politics

First Berlusconi was able to draw on a wealth of human resources within his economic empire, resources which have particular relevance to the conduct of politics in the media age, and which are not in abundant supply in Italy outside Berlusconi’s empire: this is one of the lesser-known political consequences of media concentration. Berlusconi called on these resources seven years ago when he created the structure of Forza Italia, which was mainly based on employees transferred from his Fininvest organization. He did it again in the last campaign, using personnel from the old and new Mediaset structure (the former Fininvest) and above all from his advertising sales unit, Publitalia.

There are numerous examples of this staff crossover, from business to politics. The most important one regards Berlusconi’s pollster in the 1994 campaign, Gianni Pilo, who was in charge of Fininvest’s market research department until just a few days before the owner of the television company for which he worked prophetically entered the race. Marcello Dell’Utri, who was fundamental to the organization of Forza Italia, had been general manager of Publitalia.

Secondly, in Italian politics, bargaining among political elites is crucial and endemic. Berlusconi''s wide-reaching empire puts him in an extremely favourable position to horse-trade. He has jobs and business opportunities to offer. And even if he is careful not to run blatantly afoul of Italy’s rules on pluralism in election coverage, he can use the content of his media outlets in more subtle ways to advance his political ends, offering other politicians favourable publicity or support on particular issues in return for their cooperation.

The “decision shortcut”

Lastly, Berlusconi’s position worked to his advantage, not because of his own policies, but because of mistakes made by his competitors. In this election Berlusconi himself was the main issue of the campaign; no other issue was as central to the election debate. All of the mass media and every politician spoke mainly about Berlusconi and the conflicts of interest created by his candidacy for Prime Minister. His opponents carried out a campaign that was basically oriented toward discrediting the future Prime Minister as much as possible and bringing to light the contradictions and problems his victory would open. They fell into the trap set by Berlusconi: centering the entire election campaign on him.

In the end, when voters went to the ballot-box, they were faced with one choice, whether or not to vote for Berlusconi. The opposition’s strategy thus simplified the voter’s decision. The leader of Forza Italia became, in American political scientist Samuel Popkin’s terms, a “decision shortcut” for the voters, a simple way to save cognitive and psychological resources.

Polls showed that, on the one hand, the voters clearly understood that the leader of Forza Italia was the main object of the campaign; but very few believed that the theme of conflict of interests should be placed at the center of the election debate. The Italian left’s campaign against Berlusconi failed to convince voters that his victory could bring real risks to Italian democracy, and Berlusconi was able to a large extent to portray himself as the victim.

The partiality of RAI here seems to have played into his hands. Berlusconi’s harmony with the voters on the conflict of interest debate is rooted in the fact that Italy does not have a strong tradition of separation between personal and community interests. Conflicts of interest have been a way of life for many years, and voters are cynical about them. Being open and unashamed about his wealth and connections probably worked to his advantage, allowing him to appear more honest and transparent than previous administrations. However, in the light of his own well-documented back room dealings, Berlusconi’s governing style is unlikely to replace the traditional cynicism of Italian political culture with a new belief in the possibility of open, accountable government.

Personalisation

In the election campaign of 2001, a process of personalisation occurred, to a degree hitherto unknown in Italy. Not only did the entire election debate focus on the clash between the two leaders, Berlusconi and Rutelli, who came to personify the broad heterogeneous political coalitions they represent, but the personalization of the campaign also gave rise to a real change in the constitution that was not “ratified” by law. The votes the electorate placed in the ballot-box did not reflect this choice explicitly; technically they voted for their own local candidate. But in effect they voted for the Prime Minister, a change in the Italian political system never provided for by any law. This is a familiar story to many in Europe and the United States and it is clearly connected, not just with Berlusconi’s control of three national networks, but more broadly with the growing centrality of commercial television to the political process in the Western World.