The Oblieght Affair: Politics, Business and Newspapers in the First Italian Media Scandal

The reconstruction of Oblieght’s activity and the analysis of the affair that broke out in January 1882 allow to observe specific aspects of the impact of contemporary transformations with which the worlds of economics and communications were experimenting in the last thirty years of the Nineteenth century. In other words, it is a way to evaluate the local repercussions of global and transnational phenomena. As a businessman, Oblieght took advantage of the new possibilities created by a more interconnected world. A world in which information and investments not only circulated in quantities and at speeds greater than in the past, but they penetrated each other much more frequently. However, Oblieght’s deeds fuelled a set of reactions, which quickly politicised events by using an expressive baggage traceable to two emotional areas capable of mobilising public opinion: that of fear and that of national identity.