La serialità generalista. Evoluzione e prospettive degli studi in Italia

This essay investigates, from an historiographical and methodological perspective, Italian broadcast serial narratives, observing its productive and formal evolution and its most prominent academic studies, as well as possible new directions and research perspectives. The first part surveys the history of these main studies, tracing them back to the currents and methodologies of television studies and relating them to the most significant changes in the Italian television scenario. In this analytical process, three distinct moments are identified: the age of the “sceneggiato”, the age of “fiction”, and the age of “premium tv series”. From this point of observation, a period between the mid-1990s and the end of the 2010s is highlighted in which Italian studies on broadcast tv series seem to decline, compared to a rise in the study of premium TV and OTT productions. The second part tries to account for this evidence, which does not seem justifiable by the lack of interesting titles produced by generalist TV, but more likely can be traced back to a lack of attention to a model of seriality considered obsolete and outdated. However, as we underline, that model faces important structural changes that absorb and rework new formats and formulas.