Towards a reflection on the documentary value of the song-form in the current mediascape. Italy that sings during the pandemic

Abstract

By using a multimedia, informative and digital writing paradigm in a semiotic, linguist, documentarist and mediological framework, this paper explores the documentary value of songform in Italy, through the analysis and classification of a varied multimedia and intermedial song corpus in the period of the Coronavirus pandemic. Thanks to its nature, in the specific Italian case the song–form has acted as a textual and narrative documentary device (defined document songs), with an artistic, evocative, intermedial and performative value, representing furthermore a privileged point of view to observe and to document the pandemic events. Not only did it
serve for Italians as a cathartic viaticum of pandemic paralysis, but also as an opportunity to offer writings of oneself to other fellow citizens, and to guide, through the testimony shared at an intermediate level, the behaviour of others, with the common goal of moving from the stalemate caused by the infections of the virus.