News Detail

Mass media: the only real vehicle for integration

Interview with Giacomo Mazzone, Secretary General of Eurovisioni

04 11 2008

In collaboration with Eurovisioni, Euromed Audiovisual recently held its eighth and final workshop in Rome, entitled Public Support to Film, to coincide with XXII Eurovisioni’s international film and television festival. Could you tell us about Eurovisioni and what its aims are?

Giacomo Mazzone: Eurovisioni is an event which has been running for 22 years. It was started by a group of European TV professionals who came together in Rome in 1987 to discuss the common problems facing the European TV industry. Since then, the event has taken place on an annual basis with a view to generating discussion regarding the most important and topical issues facing the industry.

What was the theme of this year’s event?

Giacomo Mazzone: This year was very much linked to the issue dealt with by Euromed Audiovisual, namely: integration. Immigrants to Europe come particularly from South Mediterranean countries and from Eastern Europe. The issue is: how do we understand and engage with each other? Today’s society, which is much more complex and multiethnic, can no longer focus on returning to a bygone past. Nor can it integrate 80 per cent of the people while the other 20 per cent of immigrants are left out. And just as South Mediterranean people watch our TV channels, we and the immigrant communities that live among us receive theirs. The problem is therefore that of finding a means of reciprocal engagement. For this reason, it was a pleasure to be able to hold our festival together with the Euromed Audiovisual workshop.

Is Eurovisioni only concerned with the Mediterranean?

Giacomo Mazzone: In 1987, we had only just come out of a television monopoly. To speak of Europe already seemed a big step forward. 20 years on, we’ve achieved a unified Europe, now enlarged to 27 members. More importantly, however, we are experiencing the phenomenon of globalisation. While early on we were concerned about what was happening in our neighbouring countries, today we also need to think about what goes on in continents far away.

In terms of the European model, the Mediterranean is directly within the field of interest of Eurovisioni because the television market is in reality a Euro-Mediterranean one. One needs only to recall that the European radiocommunication zone for the purposes of the ITU (the International Telecommunications Union) stretches from Reykjavík to Morocco and from the Middle East to Moscow. The natural boundary is not the sea, which carries radio waves, but the desert.

What is the European model?

Giacomo Mazzone: Europe has a model which is unique in the world because it is made up of public, private, pay-TVs and other broadcasters that coexist and are on the same footing. In the rest of the world, this is not the case. Either there is State TV or, only commercial broadcasters. So when we speak of an integrated model, we’re talking about the European model. Hence, to defend or seek to spread the European model means to uphold a non-imperialistic integration model, which enables and facilitates integration and which is based on a rationale of cultural exchange.

You were a member of the Reflection Group formed by Euromed Audiovisual together with 16 other European and Mediterranean audiovisual professionals, you helped prepare a document on potential future strategies for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in this sector. In your opinion, which of the recommendations made should be considered a priority for the near future?

Giacomo Mazzone: The priority is, first of all, not to allow the work of the Euromed Audiovisual programme to be discontinued. In the past, Europe twice started cooperation programmes in the audiovisual sector with Mediterranean countries. Regardless of whether they were on the mark or misguided, well or badly-designed, the European Commission had sent out a message of hope to these countries as well as to the younger generations, given that 50 per cent of their population is under 30 years of age. This is the third time that Europe has said “we will help you”. If it was decided not to continue with the programme, Europe would be making a big mistake.

How can we maintain our credibility if first we send out a message saying we want to integrate, particularly via the mass media - the only real vehicle for integration - and then fail to follow up on it? What enables me to engage with and understand people from the South Mediterranean, and vice versa, is their cinema and TV channels that I am exposed to and ours that they see. It’s the only way we can understand and get to know each other. Building roads and bridges is certainly useful but it doesn’t help us understand each other. It would therefore be a fatal error. The one key element needed to bring the work of the programme to fruition is continuity.