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Camorra Networks
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15 September 2026
In Italy, national broadcasting and underworld media networks share a playbook, crafting political narratives and social identities, building neoliberal markets of visibility, and mobilizing the poor as populist political actors. Focusing on the social peripheries of Naples, this book examines how Camorra, one of Europe’s most entrenched and violently coercive criminal organizations, runs music, television, and online media empires that collide with state-regulated cultural industries. It reveals “systems” of cultural production where licit and illicit merge, entertainment becomes political, and power feeds on the public it claims to serve. In doing so, it challenges the mainstream understanding of the relationship between media, democracy, and violence in Italy and beyond.
“This book presents an empirically reach, theoretically nuanced and historically grounded account of a highly interesting and novel aspect of crime culture.” • Adam Arvidsson, University of Naples
“This is an original, deeply researched, and theoretically sophisticated book. I have never seen another author reveal so effectively the functioning of individualistic neoliberal practices in the interstices of state-mafia-"street," whether in Naples, in Italy, or anywhere else (the parallels the author draws with the U.S. are quite interesting).” • Ivan Kalmar, University of Toronto
Salvatore Giusto is currently Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona,Spain). Previously, he served as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Amsterdam and a Contract Assistant Professor at Bishop's University (Sherbrooke, Canada). His research, published in leading journals such as Global Crime, PoLar, and Journal of Modern Italian Studies.
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1. One of Us: Neomelodic Music Production and the Populist Stage
Chapter 2. Masters of the House: The Political Life of Neomelodic Live Concerts
Chapter 3. Through the Looking Glass: Tele-Politics within the Italian Social Peripheries
Chapter 4. Visual Intermezzo
Chapter 5. Pay-Per-View: The Neomelodic TV Industries as a Neoliberal “System” of Political Relationality
Chapter 6. Scar-Facebook: Camorra-backed and State-Regulated Digital Media Branding
Conclusion
References
Index