Nature of the media and the expectations of politicians in Italy

The author analyzes political consequences of the transformation of the Italian media system, which is the result of the political crisis of the ‘90 – and the fall of the First Republic. He presents shape of the contemporary Italian media policy and its specificity in terms of conflict of interest, unprecedented in Europe. A conflict of interest was the result of the fact that the exercise of public functions, coming from a political choice, had been charged directly to the economic group, the head of which became of the former Prime Minister of the Italian government. Moreover, this conflict was intensified by the legislative initiatives of Italian government aimed to weaken the position of Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire market competitors.