Itinerari di mediatizzazione del ciclismo nella canzone italiana: forme, racconti, immaginario = Itineraries of mediatization of cycling in Italian song: forms, stories, imaginary

Abstract

This study explores the role of the song-form within the phenomena of mediatization of sport, focusing on the case of cycling in the Italian mediascape. After illustrating the different forms of sports mediatization in songs, by reporting on the case study, this paper will highlight, first of all, the specificity of the paratextual mediatization of the songs in the Giro d'Italia. These songs represent a cohesive and identifying medium in a historical moment in which the media-narrative of this sport loses the epic, romantic and mythological stylistic features that it had possessed for a long time. After that, the investigation of the forms of textual mediatization will reveal to what extent they are addressed to some practices of revitalization of an imaginary of the past, underlining an ancestral dimension of the bicycle that was served in post-war Italy to nurture an emotional inspiration useful for relieving oneself of the difficulties of war. This aspect is re-vitalized on a textual level in songs that are configured as stories, but which have not been able to transform themselves – as happens for example in football – into practices of performative and collective sharing