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The Southernification of the Pandemic in Italy: Images of the South, Fears of Contamination, and the First Wave of COVID-19 in Italy

The Southernification of the Pandemic in Italy: Images of the South, Fears of Contamination, and the First Wave of COVID-19 in Italy

Marcello Messina
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 24
ISBN13: 9781668484272|ISBN10: 1668484277|ISBN13 Softcover: 9781668484319|EISBN13: 9781668484289
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-8427-2.ch009
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MLA

Messina, Marcello. "The Southernification of the Pandemic in Italy: Images of the South, Fears of Contamination, and the First Wave of COVID-19 in Italy." News Media and Hate Speech Promotion in Mediterranean Countries, edited by Elias Said Hung and Julio Montero Diaz, IGI Global, 2023, pp. 162-185. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-8427-2.ch009

APA

Messina, M. (2023). The Southernification of the Pandemic in Italy: Images of the South, Fears of Contamination, and the First Wave of COVID-19 in Italy. In E. Said Hung & J. Diaz (Eds.), News Media and Hate Speech Promotion in Mediterranean Countries (pp. 162-185). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-8427-2.ch009

Chicago

Messina, Marcello. "The Southernification of the Pandemic in Italy: Images of the South, Fears of Contamination, and the First Wave of COVID-19 in Italy." In News Media and Hate Speech Promotion in Mediterranean Countries, edited by Elias Said Hung and Julio Montero Diaz, 162-185. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2023. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-8427-2.ch009

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Abstract

Starting from February 2020, Italy was the first among the European countries, to experience dramatic rises in daily COVID-19 deaths and contagions. An important aspect that distinguished the first COVID-19 wave (Feb-Jun 2020) from the following waves of infection in Italy was the sheer imbalance, in terms of deaths and contagion, between Northern and Southern regions of the country. Despite the fact that the South was far less hit by the disease, a series of narratives that associated the spread of the epidemic with some sort of Southern infector started to appear, conveyed by social media posts, news pieces, talk shows, and even football banners. In this chapter, there is an attempt to identify and critically analyse the discourses that inscribe a characteristic “Southernification” of the pandemic in Italy, that is a partial and symbolic attempt to (1) discursively transfer the infection to the South; and/or (2) hand over the responsibilities that are behind the particularly violent first wave of infections in the country to Southern communities, polities, and cultural practices.

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