Digital TV will be more and more of a sort of supermarket in which the viewer will take what he needs: this is the metaphor used today by Francesco Casetti, lecturer at Milan’s Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, in his report on the TV system in the evolution of the media at the World Congress of Catholic TVs, which is in progress in Madrid (10-12 October), in front of over 300 delegates from approximately 2000 Catholic TVs from all over the world. "TV is certainly no longer a mirror of the world through which a social subject can come into contact with reality and live a mediated experience commented Casetti but it is no longer a shop-window full of glistening cultural products either; it has become, instead, a sort of supermarket, divided by departments and shelves, and a trolley in which the consumer puts what he needs, filling it in order to make up his personal menu, and paying at the end, unfailingly, at the checkout counter". Digital TV, in Casetti’s opinion, by offering interactivity with the viewer, will become more and more of "a snug place in which to place ourselves, instead of a simple screen from which we enjoy news or shows, thus making for the utopia of a personal place in which to place ourselves or hole ourselves up, the dream of an individualized TV or a personal TV".
