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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - In-Transit Televisions: Productive Patterns and Urban Imageries of Mobility
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Emiliano Rossi
2022/06/27
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Università di Bologna
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Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - In-Transit Televisions: Productive Patterns and Urban Imageries of Mobility
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                                                                                       In-Transit Televisions:
                                                                                       Productive Patterns
                                                                                       and Urban Imageries of Mobility
                                                                                       Emiliano Rossi/Ph.D. Thesis Abstract1
                                                                                       Università di Bologna
                                                                                       DOI 10.54103/2036-461X/17981




                                                                                         From the early 2000s, in Italy, too, the            the video contents taken into account in the
                                                                                       installation of video-communication systems           thesis, blurring the line between editorial clips,
                                                                                       within transportation terminals (i.e., rail and       marketing materials, traffic bulletins and public
                                                                                       underground stations, airports, waiting shelters,     utility alerts directed to travellers. Through
                                                                                       highway rest areas) has progressively affected        a mapping of the major national cases of in-
                                                                                       the urban mediascape, posing new challenges           transit television, the inquiry aims to deepen the
                                                                                       for the design of public infrastructures. This        commercial and professional practices implied
                                                                                       doctoral thesis explores so-called ‘go-television’    in the functioning of such audiovisual channels:
                                                                                       screen networks located in Italian high-flow hubs,    acting as a last-mile medium, go-TV appears to
                                                                                       mainly — but not exclusively — in metropolitan        work as a window on the travelling habits of
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License




                                                                                       areas: such real-time broadcasting circuits are       thousands of daily passengers as well as en-
                                                                                       conceived to entertain and inform spectators          passant spectators, generating and reflecting a
                                                                                       caught in the time of waiting and transit (e.g.,      particular experience of mobility.
                                                                                       ‘captive audiences’), through displays and              This research attempts to situate its object of
                                                                                       video-totems which interact with synchronised         analysis within the Italian media environment,
                                                                                       and spatially assembled viewers. As a result,         demonstrating how these networks have grown
                                                                                       transportation facilities seem nowadays to be         relevant in virtue of their complex creative drives,
                                                                                       characterized by a combination of news stream,        the strategies of the professionals involved as
                                                                                       recorded image loops, audio announcements,            well as their proprietary assets and the various
                                                                                       advertisement,      multi-screen      live  relays    purposes of their wide range of stakeholders.
                                                                                       which became structural components of their           First, the thesis positions go-television on a
                                                                                       genius loci: being containers of audiovisual          theoretical level, showing how mobility and visual
                                                                                       experiences, these interstitial settings shed light   cultures have interwoven since the beginning
                                                                                       on the multiple ways media interconnect with          of the entertainment industry. The double logic
                                                                                       architectures of transport, forging what scholars     of transportation as a material and symbolic
                                                                                       have defined the ‘media-architecture complex’.²       carrier is deepened, given that television itself
                                                                                       Outlined thus, go-TV stands for the result of         has repeatedly been assessed as a technology
                                                                                       collective efforts: not only there are specialized    of dynamism. Furthermore, this study deals
                                                                                       companies in this market, but transportation          with the connections between the small screen
                                                                                       companies and local authorities are also              and the urban environment, reflected in the
                                                                                       included in the intricate production chain of         particular socio-topological status of go-TV’s


                                                                                       Cinéma & Cie vol. 22 no. 38 2022 · ISSN 2036-461X                                                 157
consumption settings: attention is reserved,           contents. In this respect, the inquiry integrates
therefore, to the ecological dimension of this         a cultural and industrial approach, and is the
medium, to its supposed space-making effects, to       result of structured and informal interviews
its site-dependence — or context-sensitiveness —       with insiders and company specialists, on-site
which operates on a centripetal basis, anchoring       observations (severely limited by the Covid-19
the transmission of video contents to the specific     outbreak) and a review of promotional paratexts,
spatial frames where they are received. Assuming       trade press, consultancy reports, internal use
that the impact of audiovisual media outside the       documents and journalistic sources. The access,
home relies on such a site specificity, the second     when possible, to semi-public documents as
aim of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive        contracts, budget plans, financial statements
definition of go-television, adequate for the whole    and commercial agreements — in addition to
range of actors entailed in its production. Third,     industrial portfolios, consultancy reports and
considering that television developed for travel       white papers issued by industrial forums —
venues typically aggregates hybrid media forms,        completed the methodological framework, which
the project examines the mediological profile          also included attendance to business fairs and
of go-TV: in spite of the growing importance of        public initiatives.
out-of-home communication, television studies            One of the primary results emerging from this
have rarely dealt with video networks outside          research is that, aligning itself to the ‘mobile
the domestic sphere (with the notable exception        privatization’, the ‘TV of the stations’ absorbs and
of Anna McCarthy’s inquiries),³ which remains          re-mediates the context where it is positioned:
a blind spot of scholarly research. Far from           the dissertation, therefore, deconstructs the
consisting in a mere relocation of TV sets away        main level on which mobility and its contraries
from the household, in-transit video screens           are visualized and depicted on these circuits,
seem to strengthen the televisual specificities        exploiting the very same movement of
at the core of their editorial (and professional)      spectators. From this perspective, the areas of in-
manufacturing,       while     fostering    original   betweenness examined act either as containers
devices of brand urbanism and geolocalized             of in situ audiovisual experiences or as the
marketing, as well as inheriting some specific         subjects (content) of the messages shown by
characteristics of cinema and radio (i.e. large        the screen themselves, reconfiguring notions of
screening surfaces, attractionality, voice-            space, networks and border regimes. One of the
centrism and schedules mainly structured upon          arguments put forward is that, while negotiating
a ‘clock’ template). The following section of the      distances and perceptions of speed through their
thesis features an overview of the commercial          moving contents, those video outlets embody
and professional habits underlying this channel        and promote images of ‘squared mobility’ (i.e.
of distribution, as part of corporate trends which     mobility within mobility), generating multiple
were sampled in the wake of media production           senses of place and offering a legitimating
studies: the mapping provides an insight on            self-portrait of the experience of travel. Hence,
fourteen different companies operating in Italy        mobility and its aesthetics work as a narrative
(beside the profiles of ten now-defunct place          trope, also when reduced to codified icons and
media corporations), together with three case          electronic signs, essential as orientational and
studies (Grandi Stazioni Media, Telesia, video         wayfinding appliances, rerouting passengers’
portals onboard high-speed trains). These latter       movement in public spaces. This fetishization
cases are not only historicized, but the thesis        of mobility is functional both for the tourism
also proposes a focus on their ‘productive             and transport industries, which capitalise their
cultures’⁴ and a modelling of their on-screen          corporate images, becoming direct publishers of



158                                                                           Rossi, In-Transit Televisions
televisual contents. In conclusion, this research
points out how go-TV can be evaluated also by
the prospects of public communication practices:
due to the scheduling of collective interest
inserts, in-transit video screens are increasingly
called to reinvigorate civic engagement of citizen,
as well as sustain the participatory processes of
modern smart cities, rehabilitating the public
role of the televisual medium.




   Notes
     1
        Supervisor: Prof. Luca Barra. For more information: emiliano.rossi5@unibo.it
     2
        Scott McQuire, The Media City. Media, Architecture and Urban Space (London: Sage, 2008).
      3
        Anna McCarthy, Ambient Television. Visual Culture and Public Space (Durham: Duke University
   Press, 2001).
      4
        John T. Caldwell, Production Culture. Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and
   Television (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008). See also Vicky Mayer, Miranda Banks and John
   T. Caldwell (eds.), Production Studies. Cultural Studies of Media (London: Routledge, 2009). In the
   Italian context, see Luca Barra, Tiziano Bonini and Sergio Splendore (eds.), Backstage. Studi sulla
   produzione dei media in Italia (Milan: Unicopli, 2016) and Marco Cucco and Francesco Di Chiara (eds.),
   “I media industry studies in Italia: nuove prospettive sul passato e sul presente dell’industria cine-
   televisiva italiana”, Schermi. Storie e culture dei media in Italia, 3.5 (2019).



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