Resistance Comes First: Pirate TV as Postmedia Activism

A brash “selfmade” billionaire with no previous political experience is elected to the nation’s highest office, buoyed by a rising tide of populism. Sophisticated manipulation of the media stokes xenophobia and resentment toward elites. The chattering classes decry declining press freedom and the hyperpolarization of society, while supporters seem happy to toss a monkey wrench into national politics as usual. While this farce may now be familiar to American readers, the tragedy began for Italians in 1994, when Silvio Berlusconi first took office as prime minister. Berlusconi continued to dominate Italian politics through 2011 and whose specter still hangs over Italy even now, always seemingly one clever joke and a smile away from the news cycle. More important than Forza Italia, the centerright political party he founded prior to his first election, is Berlusconi’s control of Mediaset, Italy’s largest mass media company. The Economist calculated that, while in office, Berlusconi had “wielded influence over some 90% of Italy’s broadcast media,” the primary source of news for a majority of Italians.1 Berlusconi took advantage of the media liberalization that followed the widespread popularity of pirate radio during the 1970s, epitomizing the appropriation of resistance that would characterize his political career. But the politicization of the media in Italy certainly