Between partisanship and cynicism: Italian journalism in a state of flux

The performance of political reporters in liberal democracies is often criticized for its near anti-political stance, an observation shared by politicians, scholars and even journalists themselves. The notion of journalistic cynicism vis-a-vis politics, however, is ambiguous and the picture emerging from research is flawed by its often originating in the USA. Here, a multidimensional conceptualization is proposed — focusing on mistrust, negative tone, irony or sarcasm, and scandal orientation — and tested in a study of newspapers in Italy, a country characterized by a strong partisan tradition but demonstrating recent signs of commercial media logic. Contrary to much of the US findings, however, the media in Italy show a decrease of cynicism in three out of four of the dimensions.