On the occasion of the International Day of Families and the World Press Freedom Day, the Universal Peace Federation (UPF Italy) joined the International Media Association for Peace (IMAP Italy), a UPF project, to organise a webinar that was held on 15 May, 2025. The theme was “Mass Media and Family: Between Consumption and Representation,”.
Promoted as part of the “Building Peace” series of UPF Italy Peace Forum, the webinar aimed to examine the profound changes that have affected the family over time, influenced by the consumption of mass media, which has become a central element in the daily lives of its members.
The panel was made up of: Mr. Vittorio Patanella, Coordinator of IMAP Italy; Ms. Maria Pia Rossignaud, Director of “Media Duemila” and Vice-President of the “TuttiMedia Observatory”, also the moderator; Mr. Marco Respinti, journalist, essayist, lecturer, and Editor-in-Chief of “Bitter Winter”; Mr. Marco Lombardi, Director of the School of Journalism at the Catholic University of Milan; Prof. Luciano Sesta, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Palermo; and Mr. Carlo Zonato, President of UPF Italy.
After the welcoming remarks by Mr. Vittorio Patanella, who explained the aims of the organisations promoting the event, Mrs. Maria Pia Rossignaud introduced the first speaker, Mr. Marco Respinti.
The journalist began by highlighting how, since the 1960s, the representation of the family has become a controversial topic and even a “target” as a result of significant social and legislative changes.
According to Mr. Respinti, the media has contributed to portraying the family “as an environment of backwardness and oppression”, and it is increasingly being asserted that the family is a “dangerous place where heinous crimes are committed.” Mr. Respinti observed that the family, traditionally considered the privileged place for personal development, is instead often described as a kind of ‘prison.’ He then pointed out that the media is merely an instrument and that attention should focus on the subjects and the objects of communication, stating that “the decline of standards in the use of means of communication reflects the deeper crisis of humanity, which has lost its sense of truth and responsibility.”
Mr. Marco Lombardi spoke about the growing influence of digital media, highlighting its “pervasiveness, impact, and ability to change our daily lives, now in a far greater way than that of traditional analogue media.” He presented some data on the structural changes of Italian families: an increase in the number of households, a decrease in the number of members per family, a rise in single parenthood and single parent families, while extended families remain residual.
Advertising, in this context, has both reflected and, in a sense, legitimised these new forms of family. Mr. Lombardi stressed how “the introduction of digital technologies has changed family dynamics, creating a divide between ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’”. In conclusion, he emphasised the fundamental importance of media literacy, which families must acquire, and the responsibility of communicators to provide accurate information.
According to Prof. Luciano Sesta, the digital media should not be considered merely as a tool but as an immersive environment that is changing the human being at an anthropological level. The success of the digital dimension, he noted, “lies in its ability to respond to deep human needs, such as the passion for the ‘elsewhere’ and the search for a better world, a role once fulfilled by religion.”
Digital immersion, with phenomena such as the fear of missing out on what happens online, can lead to the perception of virtual experience being more “real” than physical life. “Today, people doubt whether they have truly had an experience if they have not shared it on social media”, the speaker elaborated. In conclusion, Prof. Sesta pointed out that the search for online visibility is linked to the human desire to be recognised, adding that “the impact of virtual experience on the sphere of sexual intimacy, as in pornography, can replace or reshape real-life intimacy”.
During the debate, the phenomenon of “Traditional Wives” on TikTok was addressed - wives who believe in and practise traditional gender roles and marriages. This reality was interpreted both as a reaction or identity claim, as an experimentation with different lifestyles offered by “digital ecosystems,” and as an example of the typical polarisation of the web, accentuated by algorithms for economic reasons.
The speakers also emphasized that what the web and so-called artificial intelligence are accomplishing today responds to human needs that were once met by religion. A purely physical reality now appears limited, while the growing success of the digital world shows that this new dimension is gradually replacing the religious one - the “religion” of likes and continuous advances in connections, while traditional religion seems to recede.
In closing, Mr. Zonato, Mr. Patanella, and the other participants expressed their hope to organise further meetings to better understand the complexity of the digital world, noting how greater media competence can bring significant benefits to families and the whole community.