Exploring imaginative geographies of nanotechnologies in news media images of Italian nanoscientists

• Italian scientists portrayed in the news mediate international expectations in nanotechnology for the national audience.
• Geographical imaginaries are symbolic and rhetorical resources for this mediation activity.
• Geographical imaginaries in the coverage are organized according to a centre-periphery dualistic model.
• The centre and the periphery correspond to the international and domestic dimensions in nanotechnology development.
• Reference to international activities in nanotechnology opens up a space for a critique of the Italian innovation system.

News stories about three prominent Italian nanoscientists are examined to explore how Italy and other countries involved in nanotechnology development are represented in the Italian media. The paper discusses the importance of these “geographical imaginaries” as symbolic and rhetorical resources for the journalists and the scientists that are pictured in the news to discursively shape what nanotechnology, its international development, and its relevance for Italy is all about.