Introduction
This chapter establishes television and print media as foundational to Silvio Berlusconi's antiestablishment politics to its many aftermaths. It explains that the immediate aftermath is about how science became seen as worth saving and a rallying cry to mobilize to the streets. It also recounts the rise of Beppe Grillo and the Five Star Movement as a consequential outcome that forms a new kind of digital populism through the Internet and algorithmic processes. The chapter examines why Italy was one of the first countries to attempt to hold disinformation and “fake news” legally accountable, and how social actors hyperinvest in scientific thinking. It refers to how the current hegemonic form of knowledge and customized Internet influence forms of governance and politics.