The idea of television as the drug of the nation is a tried and true one in the US, but the metaphor goes way beyond reality in the Italy depicted in Erik Gandini's documentary Videocracy. With longtime Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi having amassed a media empire prior to coming into power, and now controlling 90 percent of television in Italy, Italians regularly tune in to a state-run carnival of tawdriness and trash, along with well-orchestrated press conferences by the prime minister himself and a happy peppy pro-Silvio propaganda song or two for good measure. Gandini, an Italian native
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