The expression Italian popular music refers to the musical output which is not usually considered academic or Classical music but rather has its roots in the popular traditions, and it may be defined in two ways: it can either be defined in terms of the current geographical location of the Italian Republic with the exceptions of the Germanic South Tyrol and the eastern portion of Friuli Venezia Giulia; alternatively, it can be defined as the music produced by all those people who consider themselves as Italians and openly or implicitly refer to this belief. Both these two definitions are very loose: due to the complex political history of the Italian Peninsula and the different independent political states, cultural and linguistic traditions which sprang within them, it is rather difficult to define what may be considered to be truly Italian. Since before the formation of a unified educational system and the spread of information through the radio and the press during the 1920s, all the different cultural and linguistic groups within the country were independent of one another, and a unified Italian country was still only a political or ideological concept far from the daily life.