A special trip to Mondadori for our International Students
By Maria Strumendo
Università Cattolica's Prof. Giulia Gibertoni accompanied her students from the spring semester English-taught course, 'Culture Industry Revisited: Role and Effects of Old and New Media on Society,' on an exclusive field trip to the Mondadori headquarters in Milan.
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| Mondadori field trip |
During the course, students looked at the effects of Italian media on society, analyzing different case studies, including Mondadori, a leading European company in the publishing industry. It's the largest publisher of books and magazines in Italy and third in France amongst magazine consumers.
Students engaged with Marco Azzani, Executive Assistant to the CEO, whom provided a behind the scenes look at the company. He screened a short video presentation about the company and highlighted Mondadori's activities in the book and ebook market, magazine, international market, digital media activities, as well as readership trends.
"Mondadori has been at the very heart and very centre of Italian society and history during good and bad times," said Marco Azzani.
The company boasts 625 stores around the country and 400,000 loyalty card holders. 2011 market figures for books accounts for 26.5%.
The Mondadori Ebook catalogue holds 5,000 titles but "the ebook market is not yet as developed as it is in the USA. However we are pretty confident that this year the numbers will triple. Said that we are investing a lot in to finding a solution," said Mr Azzani.
Given the 2011 market figures, Mr Azzani confirmed that the magazine business which sits at 34.2%, is "faster" compared to the book market. Men's Health, Chi, and Grazia magazines are amongst the most popular reads.
On the international front, since 2011, Random House Mondadori, one of the most important publishing groups in the Spanish language, was formed from a joint venture between Random House and Mondadori, now acting as a second player in the Spanish market.
After presenting a series of figures in the various areas of Monadori, Mr Azzani passionately spoke about the step-by-step process of making of a book which he described as being "much more complicated and longer than a magazine."
The students also engaged in discussions with Mr Azzani, asking questions concerning readership in Italy, and the international market.
"In terms of consumption, Italian children up until the age of 10 years read the most in Europe...Girls aged between 20 – 30 read a lot more than men," he said.
Students were very motivated from the visit, getting a taste of an Italian publishing house.
"I really enjoyed my visit to Mondadori. Mr Azzani answered all of my questions coherently providing very interesting responses. I now have a wider understanding of the company," said Gabrielle Micheletti, Eurolearn student from Rhode Island University.
It was an honour for UCSC International to be invited to Mondadori as the company generally does not conduct field trips," said Prof. Giulia Gibertoni.
Cattolica International News, May 2013 Edition
