"Television Can Damage Your Health?" Italian Doctors and Medical Drama: A Qualitative Approach

The relationship between medical dramas and medical professionals is an interesting and controversial topic to be investigated, both through the ap- proach of production studies and of qualitative analysis of consumption. Professionals are involved in this serial genre in at least two ways: from a pro- duction point of view, through their contribution to the scripts as consultants for screenwriting, and from a reception point of view, through their qualified – but often very critical – opinion about medical dramas as spectators. Both these sides of professionals’ involvement have been investigated through the years, especially as far as American serials are concerned, while less attention has been paid to this topic by Italian television studies. Our chapter will focus on Italian professionals’ opinions about the genre of med- ical drama and, namely, on a popular recent Italian tv series, Doc – nelle tue mani (Rai1, 2020-). Our hypothesis is that – especially in the professional viewers’ opinion – a persistent strong cultural prejudice towards television prevents them from appreciating national medical dramas and their capaci- ty to depict the Italian medical system in a realistic way. In our research we approach the relationship between medical dramas and medical professionals through qualitative interviews to physicians, in the theoretical framework provided by production studies.