Italy

The legal representations in films and on television are considered to be “Cultural Barometers”, which reflect the Cultural Zeitgeist and can be used to interpret society’s values and opinions on law and justice. In the next few pages we look at the evolution of these representations in Italian television programming, excluding the news. This highly selective description includes those programmes deemed to be emblematic of the evolution of the social meanings attributed to law and its representatives (Police, Trials, Judges, Lawyers, Prison). In order to measure the current representation of law and justice on television, the top 21 national digital free television channels, which accounted for 74.98% of audience share in the period of reference, November 2014, were analysed. In conclusion, it can be argued that the Italian dramas and shows provide a rather poor representation of the procedures and principles underpinning law and justice. There is little attempt to tackle the complexity of the relations between the legal system and the social system, while the reading of social reality and crime that is offered to the public by means of the people, institutions and rituals of the law as represented on television is excessively black-and-white.