Il conflitto tra consensuale e reificato: il caso Di Bella a ‘Porta a Porta’

The research analyses an episode of the television talk-show Porta a Porta devoted to the Di Bella case in order to identify modalities, rhetoric devices, contents and outcomes of this emblematic TV program where the main protagonists of the case were invited to discuss Di Bella treatment. The Di Bella case still has a strong symbolic value, because it affects the way people perceive illness – cancer can be considered the prototypical illness - and its possible treatments. We refer to the social representations theory critically reconsidered and we assume, as main hypothesis, that the Di Bella case points out with a particular evidence the existing conflict between the “reified” universe of the official medicine and its representatives, on one hand, and the “consensual” universe represented by Di Bella’s patients and supporters on the other hand. This implies that each of the two parts will only present its own arguments and rhetoric and that this particular talk-show can't and eventually does not aim to promote a real process of communication between the two opposite parts. We experiment the integration of two methodologies, a quantitative-qualitative one and a qualitative one. The results indicate the inability to negotiate a shared meaning of the Di Bella case. This lack of communication must not to be interpreted, in terms of the social representations theory, as a confirmation of the ontological difference between the reified and the consensual, but has to be explained in reference to “ecological” and background factors, first of all political ones, that framed the Di Bella case. This means that the people that took part in the talk show are more interested in representing their different stances than in dialoguing