Advertising and propaganda institutions in fascist Italy. Versions of interaction

Abstract

The Fascist State in Italy had a consistent programme for the development of advertising, advertising institutions and the use of propaganda methods, strengthening not only the state machine of influencing the population, but also resolving the problems of developing the profession of an advertiser (or a “technician” in the therminology of the 1920s-1930s). The author touches upon the issue that started to be discussed again in the recent works of the Italian and British authors – the suppression by the Fascist State of the certain spheres of state and society functioning. The institutional retrospective is combined in the article with the history of knowledge about the links between the commercial and the political: the relationship between the emerging advertising profession and the regime; the foundation of the National Fascist Syndicate, “The Agencies and Houses of Advertising”, and its publication, the magazine La Pubblicita d’Italia; the research on advertising and propaganda carried out in the 1930s; the results of the professional congresses and the development of international exchanges between professionals. The Fascist means of communication in Italy, their origins and development, the identification of the new perspectives on the issues addressed will provide a theoretical and methodological assistance in the process of their identification in the context of contemporary realities.