Sustainability and Food Waste in Cooking Shows. On-Screen and Off-Screen Practices in MasterChef Italia

Veronica Innocenti is Full Professor at the University of Bologna, Department of the Arts, where she teaches courses on television history, f ilm and media marketing, fashion and audiovisual media. Her research is focused on the historical development of television formats, with specific reference to serial narratives. She is also interested in the relationship between media industries and audience reception, with a particular emphasis on gender dynamics. She has extensively written on television series, reality TV, and Italian media adopting an ecosystemic approach. Her most recent publications are La televisione italiana. Storie, generi e linguaggi (with Luca Barra and Paola Brembilla, Pearson 2024) and Moda e televisione (Carocci, 2025). She is Editor in Chief of SERIES. International Journal of Serial Narratives and Editor of Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal and she has been a speaker and organizer for many national and international conferences.

Paola Brembilla is associate professor at the University of Bologna, where she teaches Television and Digital Media. Her research interests concern the interplay of business models, narrative forms and socio-cultural contexts in serial narratives, especially TV series and media franchises. She is the author of articles, chapters and books, among which La televisione italiana. Storie, generi e linguaggi (with L. Barra and V. Innocenti, Pearson 2024), Franchise Mediali. Industrie, narrazioni, pubblici (Pàtron, 2023) and It’s All Connected. L’evoluzione delle serie TV statunitensi (Franco Angeli, 2018). With Ilaria A. De Pascalis, she edited the volume Reading Contemporary Serial Television Universes (Routledge, 2018).