Televised stations in Italy: The visualisation of mobility on transportation hubs video networks

Passenger journeys increasingly include mediality in its various manifestations. Mass-transit systems need clear signs, often featured in the form of audiovisual media, and transmitted through displays working for captive and in-transit audiences. With reference to Italian biggest railway stations, the chapter explores the reconfiguration of those television-like networks (commonly known as ‘go-tv’ systems) into corporate communication touchpoints, valuable both for the travel and carriage industry, as well as for a plethora of investors in search of advertising opportunities. First, this chapter positions the subject on a theoretical level, showing how mobility and visual cultures have interwoven since the launch of the entertainment industry. Issues of media ubiquity, contextual/location-based communication and liminal spatial statuses are also included. Second, drawing from a large set of examples on the Italian territory, the chapter deconstructs then the main levels on which the experience of transport is visualised on these circuits, clarifying the actors and factors underlying the productive chain and providing interpretative tools. More than with textuality or transmission technologies, this chapter deals indeed with industrial and commercial routines, examined from the point of view of production cultures. One of the arguments proposed is that these out-of-home networks often blur the lines between real-time news, marketing materials and traffic information to travellers, embedding large volumes of contents which re-mediate the very same idea (and format) of mobility, mainly due to the commercial and professional specificities of go-television.