L’Europa “stampata”. L’avvio del processo di integrazione europea attraverso gli articoli della Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno 1950-1957

Abstract

The paper analyses the ways in which one of the most important newspapers of Southern Italy, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, narrated, commented and discussed the first steps of European integration, from the Schuman proposal of 9 May 1950 to the signing of the Treaties of Rome in 1957. La Gazzetta represented in those years the main body of formation and orientation for the public opinion in Puglia, a region that would have been strongly affected by the transformation processes generated by the European cooperation. The study – after having described the history and peculiarities of the newspaper – brings out the positions, doubts and hopes expressed by the management and the main editorialists, in a phase in which the outcomes of the community process were not at all obvious, and the readers’ involvement in a journey that did not have to seem top-down appeared fundamental.