The media dimension of risk has undergone relevant shifts in recent years, in conjunction with the evolution of journalism, along with the diffusion of mainstream media and the rise of internet. This is what recent studies have unearthed, thanks to some successful theoretical insights in the field of communication studies, as in the case of Silverstone’s “mediapolis”. Technology, entertainment, journalism turned “media logic” into a shared social culture. The narration of (criminal) risks marks daily life, insofar as they encompass culture and religion, as Federico Boni has emphasized in his work on media theories. This is an aspect concerning the processes of individualization of faith tethered to the shortcomings of institutions, including educational and religious ones. Thus it is possible to underline the consequences of globalization and the construction of symbolic universes. Frantic and fleeting, they have been corroded by uncertainty and violence. Hence follows the introduction of innovative gists as “dictatorship of relativism”, “fluid religiosity”, “subjective polytheism”, that are connected to the serial narrative of the politics of invisibility. Paolo Sorrentino’s Tv series, The New Pope, deals with the search of the “middle way” already disclosed in the first season, The Young Pope. Sorrentino probes the complexity featuring the management of temporal and spiritual power: post-modern man looks for the hidden truth legitimating the incurable flagellation of social conscience. John Brannox (John Paul III) is the theorist of the “middle way”: he is a well-rounded, elegant but fragile man, who has to cope with regrets and familiar lacerations. He follows Lenny Belardo (Pius XIII), an uproot young Pope searching for his family origins. He fights the intrigues and hypocrisies of the ecclesiastic world, which is not new to behavioral, political and ethical short circuits, as recently denounced by Pope Francis.
Sorrentino compares two different and complementary communicative styles. They are both inspired by the mystery of faith and history, insofar as they act in a socio-cultural framework shaped by a new rhetoric of persuasion.
Fighting the abuses of power requires a calculated degree of visibility: this is the antiphrastic communicative strategy behind the show, which emphasizes the contrast between search of truth and narration of risk.