Abstract

The role of the cinema was so significant in the 20th century that the study of its influence on lifestyles and consumption is worthwhile. Its pervasiveness was such that it involved the entire media system, not least that which most marked the modern age, the press, and in particular the weekly magazines, the area that grew the most in Post-World War II Italy. The wide variety of readers they addressed allows us to relate the issue to social stratification. Like the other weeklies, L’Espresso made extensive use of cinema, in particular of stardom, but included it within its strategies of distinction aimed at reinforcing its image as a periodical that was an expression of the liberal elite, a part of the ruling class of Italy’s economic miracle, which believed it possessed the most legitimate cultural resources to modernise the country