ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the growth of Mediaset's unrivalled power by looking at specific case studies that unveil the significance of its influence within the political, economic, and cultural domains. The importance of Mediaset as a global company is due to more than its market size and scope: with its unrivalled concentration of symbolic, political, and economic power unimaginable in any other Western democracy Mediaset has been influencing the fate of the Italian nation for more than three decades. In 2004, both the Council of Europe and the European Parliament explicitly denounced the open conflict of interest between Berlusconi's media interests and his political role. In 2004, Freedom Housean independent watchdog organisation based in Washington, DC downgraded Italy from a free to a partially free country. The republic has fluctuated between the two rankings ever since. Italy's fortunes continue to be shaped by Mediaset, whose concentration of power makes it the secret dream of every media mogul.
