Information Management and Fascist Identity: newsreels in fascist Italy

Caprotti, Federico

doi:10.1080/13688800500323899

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 8 publications

(8 reference statements)

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“…Rural agricultural areas, associated with fertility, health and population increase (Ipsen, 1996), were seen as positive counterparts to the deleterious effects which migration and urban industrial population densities visited on national demographic growth rates. The Pontine Marshes thus became a working, living metaphor for the regime's modernizing drive (Berman, 1999;Swyngedouw, 1999), aimed at the restoration of traditional pre-industrial values in a "pristine" natural area where nature could be debelled and a fascist rural-urban utopia constructed in its place (Caprotti, 2007(Caprotti, , 2005a).…”

Section: Internal Colonisation: the Pontine Marshesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The marshland became a landscape in which technology and the quasi-utopian agency of fascist persuasion went hand-in-hand. The regime's creation of an ordered, transformed hydraulic and biological landscape (Caprotti, 2005a) in the marshes was the base layer on which the regime's planning institutions constructed urban, rural and agricultural realities embodied in the colonists who, willingly or not, came to populate this vast sociotechnological experiment. I now turn to examine the manner in which colonists were selected and, often, coerced into migrating to the marshes by the regime.…”

Section: Internal Colonisation: the Pontine Marshesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Internal colonisation, hegemony and coercion: Investigating migration to Southern Lazio, Italy, in the 1930s

Caprotti¹

2008

Geoforum

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This paper investigates the Italian fascist regime's use of internal colonization as part of a wider ruralization policy aimed at promoting population growth, curbing rural-urban migration, staunching emigration, and halting the spread of industrial urbanization. By focusing on the case study of the Pontine Marshes, the paper demonstrates how, through targeted selection procedures aimed at displacing defined social and political undesirables, migrants were chosen and effectively coerced into migrating to the "fascist" landscape of the marshes. The area, reclaimed and developed in the 1930s, was celebrated as a sign of the regime's engineering and social success. The paper utilizes Antonio Gramsci's thought on hegemony, and argues that the overt use of coercion hints at the fact that fascism, although ideologically totalitarian and hegemonic, was contested. Although statisticians, demographers and state bureaucrats were organized and institutionalized in the construction of hegemony based on consent, fascism based itself more in coercion than in passive consent in the case of internal colonization.

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Section: Internal Colonisation: the Pontine Marshesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Internal Colonisation: the Pontine Marshesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Internal colonisation, hegemony and coercion: Investigating migration to Southern Lazio, Italy, in the 1930s

Caprotti¹

2008

Geoforum

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“…The following focuses on the modern project undertaken by the fascist regime to eliminate the ‘negative’ nature of the marshes, identified with malaria. The project fused biology, technology and propaganda (Caprotti 2005). Marshland could not be colonized without the removal of a particular biological agent detrimental to human habitation: malaria.…”

Section: Roots In Time: Transforming a Millennial Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

Malaria and technological networks: medical geography in the Pontine Marshes, Italy, in the 1930s

Caprotti¹

2006

Geographical Journal

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This paper examines the struggle against malaria undertaken by the fascist regime in the Pontine Marshes, south of Rome, and relates it to discourses of domination of nature on the one hand, and modernization and civilization through technological networks such as health and medical networks on the other. The marshes' 'first nature' is described first of all, focusing on malaria and the difficulty of making an impact on marsh biology before the fascist enterprise and before the large-scale employment of modern technology for the subjugation, channelling and development of the marshes. Secondly, the paper focuses on the organization of medical antimalaria networks in the marshes during the years immediately preceding and during the fascist period . Thirdly, the 'second nature' produced in the marshes following the land reclamation and antimalaria projects is examined, and an assessment is provide of the fascist antimalaria project in the marshes.

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“…September 1934 saw the formation of the Undersecretariat of State for Press and Propaganda, which was placed under Mussolini's direct supervision (Cole 1938 It was within this context that fascism instituted newsreels as a key instrument of fascist propaganda (Caprotti 2005). Italy was not alone in using newsreels as a means to communicate political messages: Britain, the United States, France, Germany and the USSR also produced a great number of newsreels in the 1930s (Bullock 1988;Reeves 1999 .…”

Section: From Concrete To Celluloidmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, the paper undertakes an analysis of film and newsreel propaganda to explore how fascism produced and promoted a distinct 'fascist nature'. Nearly 3,000 newsreels and many documentaries were produced from the late 1920s until the fall of the fascist regime (Caprotti 2005;. Archival research identified 70 newsreels and nine documentaries from the period [1930][1931][1932][1933][1934][1935][1936][1937][1938][1939], which screen scenes directly referring to the Pontine Marshes project.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Producing the ideal fascist landscape: nature, materiality and the cinematic representation of land reclamation in the Pontine Marshes

Caprotti

Kaïka

2008

Social & Cultural Geography

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Information Management and Fascist Identity: newsreels in fascist Italy

Cited by 9 publications

References 8 publications

Internal colonisation, hegemony and coercion: Investigating migration to Southern Lazio, Italy, in the 1930s

Internal colonisation, hegemony and coercion: Investigating migration to Southern Lazio, Italy, in the 1930s

Malaria and technological networks: medical geography in the Pontine Marshes, Italy, in the 1930s

Producing the ideal fascist landscape: nature, materiality and the cinematic representation of land reclamation in the Pontine Marshes

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