Dai fatti alle parole. Come sta cambiando la cronaca nera milanese

The thesis deals with the changing world of the crime news in Milan. The aim of the study is to show how, in the last years, the framing processes have been the most important factors to explain the local crime news selection inside the journalistic field. The empirical analysis is based on an ethnographic research carried on in 2011, based on two main qualitative methods: participant observation in the local editorial office of the most important newspaper of Milan - «Corriere della Sera» -, following the crime reporters during the interaction with the sources too; interviews with journalists, news editors and police officers involved in the daily construction of the local crime news. Starting from a theoretical background that shows how the Italian media system has been changing since the 80s - moving from a deep reliance on the political system to an autonomous role in setting public issues -, I argue for a new centrality of the media system. In order to explain the peculiarity of this change, I analyze the enlargement of the journalistic field and the "professionalization" of the sources in the way they negotiate with the journalists. After a focus on the journalists' selection practices and salience attribution during the relationship with the sources and in the editorial office, the analysis deals with the change of the most important source of the crime news, the Police. Since the last years, with the creation of the Press Office, a centralization of the communication to the media occured. This event expresses the intention of this institution to spread an official version of the crime facts and to make more and more difficult the relationship between the journalists and the police officers inside the Police headquarters. This centralization of the communication and the closure to the reporters' incursions, combined with other factors, diverts the press onto other actors, like the politicians and the citizens. This transformation changes the way the crime news are selected and highlights the importance of framing processes: the more a fact can fit in a frame shared or "sponsored" by politicians, public and journalists, the more probable that fact becomes news. So now politicians and citizens try to use this process in their favour, getting a media focus on their own issues, and asking for a solution. Because of the new centrality of the media system, politics and public can orient the interpretation of a issue, provided that they are able to use the language, criteria and formats of the media system.