Bodies on Stage: Representations of Physicality in Italian Media through La Repubblica (1984–2024)

This study examines the evolution of descriptions of male and female bodies in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica over a forty-year period (1984–2024). Focusing on showbusiness professionals, the research explores how media narratives have portrayed physical appearance and whether these portrayals have shifted across decades. The methodology involved extracting body-related language from La Repubblica articles mentioning showbusiness professionals, manually refining the terms to focus on physical descriptions, and analyzing their frequency and contextual use over time.