Media and Cultural Landscape Shaped by Giorgia Meloni's Leadership

Under Giorgia Meloni's government, the Italian media landscape has experienced heightened tensions and criticism, especially regarding the government’s contentious relationship with the press.

The broader Italian media environment remains dominated by a few large private and public players, such as RAI (public broadcaster), Mediaset, and La7, limiting diversity of viewpoints. This persists under Meloni’s administration without significant structural change. Press freedom in Italy ranks moderately low, reflecting ongoing political and economic pressures on journalism.

The Media Pluralism Monitor, a benchmark for the European Commission’s annual Rule of Law Report, attested to worrying patterns in Italy on several fronts, from government SLAPPs to the colonization of public service. The report notes a surge in the number of alerts about infringed press freedom, with 193 from October 2022 to June 2024, compared to 75 in the previous 22 months.

The Meloni government's assaults on media freedom have been documented by multiple organizations, including the European Federation of Journalists and authoritative press freedom watchdogs. The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) issued a report in May 2024, titled Silencing the Fourth Estate: Italy's democratic drift, highlighting attacks and violations of press freedom by politicians in an attempt to marginalize and silence critical voices.

As many as 54 of the 193 alerts were triggered by government or public authority initiatives, according to the MFRR report. Meloni's government has been accused of using strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) to silence critical voices in the media.

In a notable incident, internationally renowned writer Antonio Scurati had a speech criticizing the government cancelled, and the director of RAI later suggested that the TV presenter who reported on the episode should have been fired. Under Meloni’s government, there has been a veritable takeover of public broadcasting, with Meloni’s speeches and those of her allies being broadcast without journalistic mediation.

The RAI journalists' union has protested against programming that attacks the government's critics, with the public broadcaster coming under attack from the governing coalition in response. Culture minister Alessandro Giuli, appointed in September 2024, is known for his fascist eagle tattoo, neo-fascist associations, and misuse of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of “cultural hegemony.”

Meloni's behavior towards journalists and newspapers is predictable, as she is intolerant of questions and criticism, presenting her targets as aggressors, enemies of the nation, or malevolent agents of a political cause. Any expression of dissent is attributed by Meloni to a single enemy: the Left.

The prime minister's response to the Commission's report published in July was to attack the newspapers she considered enemies. Reporters Without Borders' 2024 World Press Freedom Index observes that Italy has dropped five places compared to the previous year, now sitting in the "problematic zone" alongside Poland, Hungary, Greece, and Bulgaria.

Meloni portrays herself as an "underdog" who has turned her fortunes around despite facing hostility, drawing inspiration from the American myth of the "self-made man" and the European right-wing populist narrative of the leader who becomes the interpreter of "the people." However, her actions towards the media and press freedom have raised concerns among journalists, press freedom watchdogs, and opposition parties.