The birth of the sport nation: sports and mass-media in Fascist Italy

A repeated object of historiographic investigation, the instrumental relationship between fascism and mass media continues to spark particular interest, especially with the involvement of a third element: the sporting event. This article proposes a «triangular» view of fascism, mass media and sport. It clarifies, on one side, the role of the press and the radio within the fascist politics of promotion and diffusion of the sport-spectacle as an instrument of propaganda within the fascist machine of consensus, and, on the other, the role of sports news in favoring the development, both qualitative and quantitative, of these means of mass communication. In addition to the existing bibliography on the history of sports and mass media during the years of the regime, this topic will be investigated with regards to propaganda during the same period.