Il borgo dei borghi. Autenticità, consumo e mediatizzazione dell’esperienza nei borghi italiani

The debate surrounding the hamlets of Italy's inner areas experienced an unexpected surge during the Covid-19 pandemic, partly driven by the desire to escape densely populated and congested urban centers. This contribution focuses on the media imaginary of Italian villages, aiming to identify its distinctive features in relation to the social and cultural phenomena catalyzed by the pandemic. While contemporary research on hamlets and Italian inner areas often focuses on the territorial impact of institutional tourism policies, the media imaginary underpinning these policies remains an underexplored field. These institutional initiatives are intrinsically tied to classification criteria for the authenticity of hamlets. This studyfocuses on an Italian television program that features a competition among the country's most outstanding villages. This specific segment of media production allows for a focused examination of prevailing conceptions of authenticity, treating them as narrative dispositifs that contribute to constructing the value of the experiences offered by Italian hamlets. It highlights several value systems that describe authenticity and provide guidelines for its recognition, thereby legitimizing the worth of certain experiences. Changes observed in the analyzed media artifacts regarding authentication processes, both pre-and post-pandemic, allow the conclusions to reflect on the dominant orientations of contemporary tourism consumption practices in the Italian hamlets.