Luca Barra
Biographic Data
| ID | 3047162 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luca Barra |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luca |
| FAMILY NAME | Barra |
| SIGNATURE | BARRA L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bologna |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5454-9611 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Pandemic on Screen, on Set and in the Writers’ Room. Writing and Production of the First Two Seasons of Doc – Nelle tue mani
The article explores the production, narrative development, and audience reception of the Italian medical drama Doc – Nelle tue mani in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through an analysis grounded in original interviews with professionals, as well as press kits, industry reports, and financial statements from Italian PSB, this research shows the evolution of the series during its first two seasons, marked by the unforeseen outbreak of the p…
ATLas Chronicles. Designing and Valorising an Italian Archive of Past Local TV Channels
Establishing a first, pilot inventory of privately-owned local TV channels operating in Italy between 1976 and 1990 is the core aim of the ATLas – Atlas of Local Televisions project, a nationally-funded research currently encompassing four Italian universities, with the intent of driving attention on an often neglected area of both academic investigation and archival practice. The research focuses on a sample of five networks which operated in co…
Young, wild, and free? Rai and its industrial challenges for contemporary Italian teen content
In recent years, Italian public service broadcaster Rai has developed strategies to engage young audiences and maintain its relevance for these traditionally under-represented consumers, notably through the production and commissioning of accessible, dedicated scripted content. This article explores recent trends in Rai's targeting of young audiences from a production and distribution standpoint. Drawing on in-depth industry interviews and indust…
Streaming Video: Storytelling Across Borders
An international team of experts explores how streaming services are disrupting traditional storytelling. The rise of streaming has dramatically transformed how audiences consume media. Over the last decade, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, including Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, have begun commissioning and financing their own original movies and TV shows, changing the way and the rate at which content is produced across the gl…
Layers of Acting: Degrees and Intermediaries of Television Performance
This short article focuses on television as a complex field of acting practices and actor management. Frequently relegated to a footnote in many careers, television is actually a crucial element in the life cycle of most Italian actors. Production studies insights also show that several intermediaries are in place, with a constant dynamic interplay among actors, production companies, and broadcasters. Moreover, television acting appears to be a s…
Studying Film and TV Actors (and Their Intermediaries): A Cultural and Industrial Approach
This introduction summarises the main goals and issues of the research project in its initial phase on contemporary Italian film and television actors, which is drawing together performance studies, stardom/celebrity studies, and media industries studies. The whole project, and this first output, shows how collaboration between disciplines, perspectives, and methods will help to better understand the many layers of a complex, multifaceted phenome…
SKAM Italia did it again'. The multiple lives of a format adaptation from production to audience experience
SKAM Italia, the Italian version of the Norwegian SKAM format, was first released in Spring 2018 and has reached its fourth season in May 2020, overcoming several industrial struggles and slowly engaging an increasing, young and local audience. This article aims to integrate a production-distribution and reception perspective, showing how they mutually reinforce the series' identity: the peculiarity of SKAM's distribution system fostered the audi…
Global distribution and ‘national mediations’ of ready-made TV shows in foreign markets: An introduction to the Special Section
The increasing internationalisation of cultural industries, including television, is a salient topic within Media Studies. Substantial research efforts have been focused on the increasing volume of content circulating among different countries, on the economic and socio-cultural forces driving its distribution, and on global TV markets and format adaptations. In different contexts, the multichannel environment and global digital platforms can eit…
Ready-made TV shows and the role of acquisitions: Investigating some mediations of the Italian and global television industry
The acquisition phase has progressively gained a crucial relevance in contemporary television industries. Building on an original research in the field of media production studies, with in-depth interviews of Italian professionals and longitudinal comparisons across the last decade, this article traces the role of acquisitions in the global distribution and national circulation of TV content and synthetizes recent developments in production routi…
Localization is now claiming its seat at the table: Interview with Saverio Perrino, BBC Studios
In an open conversation, Saverio Perrino, then localization executive at BBC Studios, highlights the role of dubbing/subtitling in the global circulation of television content and explains how a large production and distribution company is working to better coordinate the preparation of multiple localized versions. The examples of McMafia (2018–present) and Good Omens (2019), analysed in detail, show the increasing complexity of localization oper…
A European Television Fiction Renaissance: Premium Production Models and Transnational Circulation
This chapter presents the results of a research study (September 2017–April 2018) on the production of premium scripted television series over the last ten years (2008–2017) in several Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK). The chapter maps out this scenario, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data. It provides first an overview of certain dimensions in each national context: volume (number of titles, nu…
Lip-Sync for Your Life” (Abroad): The Distribution, Adaptation and Circulation of RuPaul’s Drag Race in Italy
The article aims to critically explore and understand the ways both RuPaul’s star persona and its program, RuPaul’s Drag Race, are distributed in Italy, circulate across, and impact on the Italian television industry and media culture, it also aims to show how many forms of national mediation, professional negotiation and audience reception deeply modify, and re-shape the TV product. To tackle the manifold facets of this case, four aspects will b…
Paratexts, Italian style: The promotional cultures of Italian commercial and pay television broadcasters
In recent years, the completed transition towards a fully developed multichannel environment and the growth of non-linear offers has brought to the Italian television (TV) landscape unprecedented attention on the ways in which programmes are communicated to the audience and their images and identities are carefully built. The preparation and circulation of promos have therefore grown in importance and relevance in the national TV industry, as new…
Elections, Camorra Style (‘La scheda bianca’, Claudio Cupellini)
An analysis of the production, linguistic and symbolic aspects of the eight episode of the first season of Gomorra. La serie
Invisible Mediations: The Role of Adaptation and Dubbing Professionals in Shaping US TV for Italian Audiences
With the increasing global circulation of media products, professionals devoted to the process of audiovisual translation and ‘national mediation’ for foreign ready-made programmes have gained a central role in contemporary TV. Presenting the results of an ethnographical study, this essay explores the ‘invisible art’ of TV adaptation and dubbing, explaining its procedures, traditions and challenges. Adaptation has to consider both the technical n…
The mediation is the message: Italian regionalization of US TV series as co-creational work
The article focuses on the co-creational labour made by professionals (and non-professionals) who, in a non-Anglo-Saxon country such as Italy, adapt and modify (heavily or slightly) the ‘original’ media products (i.e. TV series) in order to make them accessible to the domestic audience. After a concise introduction on the ‘Italianization’ process, the article proceeds to describe two ways of adapting nationally: the professional translation and d…
The relationship between estrogen levels and diets of Caucasian American and Oriental immigrant women
The relationship between diet and estrogens was studied in two groups of women with different dietary habits and breast cancer risks. Plasma estrogens and androgens and 24-h urinary and fecal excretion of estrogens were measured in premenopausal and postmenopausal Caucasians and recent Oriental immigrants from Southeast Asia to Hawaii. Premenopausal Caucasians had 30-75% higher plasma estrone and estradiol levels than their age-matched cohorts in…
The mediation is the message: Italian regionalization of US TV series as co-creational work
The article focuses on the co-creational labour made by professionals (and non-professionals) who, in a non-Anglo-Saxon country such as Italy, adapt and modify (heavily or slightly) the ‘original’ media products (i.e. TV series) in order to make them accessible to the domestic audience. After a concise introduction on the ‘Italianization’ process, the article proceeds to describe two ways of adapting nationally: the professional translation and d…
SKAM Italia did it again'. The multiple lives of a format adaptation from production to audience experience
SKAM Italia, the Italian version of the Norwegian SKAM format, was first released in Spring 2018 and has reached its fourth season in May 2020, overcoming several industrial struggles and slowly engaging an increasing, young and local audience. This article aims to integrate a production-distribution and reception perspective, showing how they mutually reinforce the series' identity: the peculiarity of SKAM's distribution system fostered the audi…
Paratexts, Italian style: The promotional cultures of Italian commercial and pay television broadcasters
In recent years, the completed transition towards a fully developed multichannel environment and the growth of non-linear offers has brought to the Italian television (TV) landscape unprecedented attention on the ways in which programmes are communicated to the audience and their images and identities are carefully built. The preparation and circulation of promos have therefore grown in importance and relevance in the national TV industry, as new…
The relationship between estrogen levels and diets of Caucasian American and Oriental immigrant women
The relationship between diet and estrogens was studied in two groups of women with different dietary habits and breast cancer risks. Plasma estrogens and androgens and 24-h urinary and fecal excretion of estrogens were measured in premenopausal and postmenopausal Caucasians and recent Oriental immigrants from Southeast Asia to Hawaii. Premenopausal Caucasians had 30-75% higher plasma estrone and estradiol levels than their age-matched cohorts in…
The mediation is the message: Italian regionalization of US TV series as co-creational work
The article focuses on the co-creational labour made by professionals (and non-professionals) who, in a non-Anglo-Saxon country such as Italy, adapt and modify (heavily or slightly) the ‘original’ media products (i.e. TV series) in order to make them accessible to the domestic audience. After a concise introduction on the ‘Italianization’ process, the article proceeds to describe two ways of adapting nationally: the professional translation and d…
Invisible Mediations: The Role of Adaptation and Dubbing Professionals in Shaping US TV for Italian Audiences
With the increasing global circulation of media products, professionals devoted to the process of audiovisual translation and ‘national mediation’ for foreign ready-made programmes have gained a central role in contemporary TV. Presenting the results of an ethnographical study, this essay explores the ‘invisible art’ of TV adaptation and dubbing, explaining its procedures, traditions and challenges. Adaptation has to consider both the technical n…
Elections, Camorra Style (‘La scheda bianca’, Claudio Cupellini)
An analysis of the production, linguistic and symbolic aspects of the eight episode of the first season of Gomorra. La serie
Paratexts, Italian style: The promotional cultures of Italian commercial and pay television broadcasters
In recent years, the completed transition towards a fully developed multichannel environment and the growth of non-linear offers has brought to the Italian television (TV) landscape unprecedented attention on the ways in which programmes are communicated to the audience and their images and identities are carefully built. The preparation and circulation of promos have therefore grown in importance and relevance in the national TV industry, as new…
Global distribution and ‘national mediations’ of ready-made TV shows in foreign markets: An introduction to the Special Section
The increasing internationalisation of cultural industries, including television, is a salient topic within Media Studies. Substantial research efforts have been focused on the increasing volume of content circulating among different countries, on the economic and socio-cultural forces driving its distribution, and on global TV markets and format adaptations. In different contexts, the multichannel environment and global digital platforms can eit…
Ready-made TV shows and the role of acquisitions: Investigating some mediations of the Italian and global television industry
The acquisition phase has progressively gained a crucial relevance in contemporary television industries. Building on an original research in the field of media production studies, with in-depth interviews of Italian professionals and longitudinal comparisons across the last decade, this article traces the role of acquisitions in the global distribution and national circulation of TV content and synthetizes recent developments in production routi…
Localization is now claiming its seat at the table: Interview with Saverio Perrino, BBC Studios
In an open conversation, Saverio Perrino, then localization executive at BBC Studios, highlights the role of dubbing/subtitling in the global circulation of television content and explains how a large production and distribution company is working to better coordinate the preparation of multiple localized versions. The examples of McMafia (2018–present) and Good Omens (2019), analysed in detail, show the increasing complexity of localization oper…
A European Television Fiction Renaissance: Premium Production Models and Transnational Circulation
This chapter presents the results of a research study (September 2017–April 2018) on the production of premium scripted television series over the last ten years (2008–2017) in several Western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK). The chapter maps out this scenario, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data. It provides first an overview of certain dimensions in each national context: volume (number of titles, nu…
Lip-Sync for Your Life” (Abroad): The Distribution, Adaptation and Circulation of RuPaul’s Drag Race in Italy
The article aims to critically explore and understand the ways both RuPaul’s star persona and its program, RuPaul’s Drag Race, are distributed in Italy, circulate across, and impact on the Italian television industry and media culture, it also aims to show how many forms of national mediation, professional negotiation and audience reception deeply modify, and re-shape the TV product. To tackle the manifold facets of this case, four aspects will b…
Layers of Acting: Degrees and Intermediaries of Television Performance
This short article focuses on television as a complex field of acting practices and actor management. Frequently relegated to a footnote in many careers, television is actually a crucial element in the life cycle of most Italian actors. Production studies insights also show that several intermediaries are in place, with a constant dynamic interplay among actors, production companies, and broadcasters. Moreover, television acting appears to be a s…
Studying Film and TV Actors (and Their Intermediaries): A Cultural and Industrial Approach
This introduction summarises the main goals and issues of the research project in its initial phase on contemporary Italian film and television actors, which is drawing together performance studies, stardom/celebrity studies, and media industries studies. The whole project, and this first output, shows how collaboration between disciplines, perspectives, and methods will help to better understand the many layers of a complex, multifaceted phenome…
SKAM Italia did it again'. The multiple lives of a format adaptation from production to audience experience
SKAM Italia, the Italian version of the Norwegian SKAM format, was first released in Spring 2018 and has reached its fourth season in May 2020, overcoming several industrial struggles and slowly engaging an increasing, young and local audience. This article aims to integrate a production-distribution and reception perspective, showing how they mutually reinforce the series' identity: the peculiarity of SKAM's distribution system fostered the audi…
Streaming Video: Storytelling Across Borders
An international team of experts explores how streaming services are disrupting traditional storytelling. The rise of streaming has dramatically transformed how audiences consume media. Over the last decade, subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, including Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, have begun commissioning and financing their own original movies and TV shows, changing the way and the rate at which content is produced across the gl…
ATLas Chronicles. Designing and Valorising an Italian Archive of Past Local TV Channels
Establishing a first, pilot inventory of privately-owned local TV channels operating in Italy between 1976 and 1990 is the core aim of the ATLas – Atlas of Local Televisions project, a nationally-funded research currently encompassing four Italian universities, with the intent of driving attention on an often neglected area of both academic investigation and archival practice. The research focuses on a sample of five networks which operated in co…
Young, wild, and free? Rai and its industrial challenges for contemporary Italian teen content
In recent years, Italian public service broadcaster Rai has developed strategies to engage young audiences and maintain its relevance for these traditionally under-represented consumers, notably through the production and commissioning of accessible, dedicated scripted content. This article explores recent trends in Rai's targeting of young audiences from a production and distribution standpoint. Drawing on in-depth industry interviews and indust…
The Pandemic on Screen, on Set and in the Writers’ Room. Writing and Production of the First Two Seasons of Doc – Nelle tue mani
The article explores the production, narrative development, and audience reception of the Italian medical drama Doc – Nelle tue mani in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through an analysis grounded in original interviews with professionals, as well as press kits, industry reports, and financial statements from Italian PSB, this research shows the evolution of the series during its first two seasons, marked by the unforeseen outbreak of the p…
Business (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society (8 works) · Advertising (7 works) · Art (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Cinema and Media Studies (6 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Social science (6 works)