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Italian Screen Audiences: Film and television history from below

Module description

The history of film and television is often told from the perspective of critics, focussing on films and television as texts, or directors as auteurs. In this module, you will consider instead howto study the history of film and television from the perspective of their audiences. In doing so, you will also watch and learn about post-war Italian film classics, like Rome Open City (Rossellini, 1945), as well as more recent popular cinema and television, from popular comedy to Netflix and web TV products like SKAM Italia.  This is a research-led module and you will carry out your own audience study based on interviews you conduct (in Italian, or English if you are not a student of Italian) during the module, and you may contribute to diverse archives of film and cinema memories/ethnographic interviews if you wish to.

Module aims - intentions of the module

• You will learn about the history of cinema and television ‘made in Italy’ from the perspective of its audiences.
• You will do so via a series of case studies that apply different approaches to audiences, including memory work and oral history, fan studies, questions of taste, film distribution, archival work and ethnography.
• You will learn how to conduct an oral history or ethnographic interview, how to consider the ethical questions behind that, and how to integrate your findings from that into your analysis.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an understanding of the history of postwar Italian cinema and television
• 2. Demonstrate knowledge of the films and television programmes on the module syllabus
• 3. Understand a variety of theoretical approaches to film audiences
• 4. Apply selected theoretical approaches to your analysis of film and television
• 5. Integrate qualitative interview analysis into your written analysis of film

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Show understanding of the role of film and television in Italian culture and history
• 7. Conduct and analyse an oral history or ethnographic interview

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. Through research, seminar discussion, and essay writing, demonstrate a capacity to question assumptions, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and to critically reflect on your own learning process
• 9. Through essay writing, demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographic skills, a capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument and a capacity to write clear and correct prose
• 10. Through a recorded interview, demonstrate listening and communication skills

Syllabus plan

While content may vary from year to year, it is expected that the module will cover:

• Oral history;
• Fan Studies/Star Studies;
• Questions of taste;
• Teen audiences;
• Creating your own audience-focussed project (ethical issues; use of surveys and quantitative data)
• The ethnographic interview;
• Audiences for Italian cinema and television outside Italy;
• New forms of audience engagement and the new media.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Abrams, Lynn, Oral History Theory, London: Routledge, 2010.
• Andò, Romana and Hipkins, Danielle, ‘Teen Identity, Affect and Sex in Rome: Italian teen girl audiences and the dissonant pleasures of Netflix’s underage prostitution drama Baby’, Studi culturali, forthcoming
• Antonioni S, Barra L, Checcaglini C., ‘ ‘SKAM Italia did it again’. The multiple lives of a format adaptation from production to audience experience’, Critical Studies in Television, 16 (4), 2021, 433-454.
• Buckley , Reka, ‘The Emergence of Film Fandom in Postwar Italy: Reading Claudia Cardinale’s Fan Mail’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 29 ( 4 ), 2009, 523–59.
• Fanchi, Mariagrazia and E. Mosconi (eds), Spettatori: forme di consumo e pubblici del cinema in Italia, 1930–1960 , Venice:  Marsilio, 2002.
• Fanchi , Mariagrazia, ‘ “Tra donne sole”: Cinema, Cultural Consumption, and the Female Condition in Post-War Italy ’, in I. Schenk , M. Tröhler and Y. Zimmermann (eds), Film-Kino-Zuschauer: Filmrezeption = Film-Cinema-Spectator: Film Reception , 305– 18 , Marburg (DE):  Schüren, 2010
• Kuhn, Annette, An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory, London:  I.B. Tauris, 2002
• Maltby, Richard, ‘On the Prospect of Writing Cinema History from Below ’, Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis, 9 ( 2 ), 2006, 74–96.
• O’Leary, Alan, ‘The Phenomenology of the Cinepanettone’, Italian Studies, Vol. 66 (3), 2011, 431–4
• O’Rawe, Catherine, Stars and Masculinities in Contemporary Italian Cinema, New York: Palgrave, 2014.
• Ralph, Sarah, ‘Using stars, not just ‘reading’ them: the roles and functions of film stars in mother–daughter relations’, Celebrity Studies, 6 (1), 2015, 23-38
• Stacey, Jackie, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship, London: Routledge, 1994.
• Treveri Gennari, Daniela et. al, ‘ Analysing Memories through Video-Interviews: A Case Study of Post-War Italian Cinema-Going ’, in D. Biltereyst , R. Maltby and P. Meers (eds), The Routledge Companion to New Cinema History , pp. 344–54 , London: Routledge, 2019
• Treveri Gennari, Daniela et al., Italian Cinema Audiences: Histories and Memories of Cinema-going in Post-war Italy, London: Bloomsbury, 2020
• Vitella, Federico, ‘ “My Dearest Alida”: Fan mail in Mussolini’s Italy’ in biancoenero 586 settembre-dicembre 2016, 92-114

Key words search

Film; television; Italian cinema; audiences