2000-2020 Special issue of Comunicazione Politica, to mark the first 20 years!
With the permission of the Publisher, il Mulino, and of the authors, we present here the pre-prints of the articles of leading authors in the various disciplines that respond to the question: “What does it mean, from your scholarly viewpoint, to study political communication today?”
This is a read-only version. You will find the final, downloadable version of the articles in the journal before the end of April 2020.
Political Communication in Changing Media Environments.
Interdisciplinary Viewpoints
Table of contents
Gianpietro Mazzoleni (University of Milan) Cristian Vaccari (University of Loughborough) Full Article References Full Article The Long Way We Have Come The past two decades of political communication research have witnessed epochal turns in the object of our investigation as well as the tools of such investigation. The users and uses of the web have grown considerably, political and nonpolitical actors have capitalized on increased opportunities for disintermediation, and the spaces in which politics is communicated have expanded. These and other phenomena and dynamics have prompted a fresh new wave of scholarly investigations, often supported by increasingly sophisticated methods and ...
Hanspeter Kriesi (European University Institute) Abstract This essay focuses on the effects of political communication processes on the attitudes and behaviors of citizens. It reviews a set of studies conducted by political scientists, mainly based on experiments, which analyze the opinion formation process among citizens, and the factors that condition it. The main thrust of these studies is that motivated reasoning limits the maneuvering space of both political actors and the media in their attempts to persuade citizens. Context characteristics (such as elite polarization), source characteristics (e.g. credibility), issue characteristics (such as familiarity, salience, and economic performance), and characteristics of ...
Silvio Waisbord (George Washington University) Full Article References Full Article Introduction Doubtlessly, we are living through unprecedented transformations in political communication structures, dynamics and practices. Among others, the proliferation of media choices, changing forms of news and political engagement, patterns of disinformation, mediated populism, mediatization, media hybridization, digital activism, and the centrality of social media in news use are relatively recent and distinctive features of mediated politics globally. They have refashioned virtually every aspect of political communication: campaigning, participation, public expression, news exposure and engagement, the agenda-setting power of the press, the process of news framing. Given the scale of ...
Chris W. Anderson (University of Leeds) Abstract In this brief paper I want to try to understand the evolving, 20 year relationship between journalism studies and political communication from a variety of perspectives. In the first section of the I take a brief tour of the history digital journalism over the past 20 years, drawing it into dialog with developments around the world. In the second section, I will argue that there has emerged a division in the journalism studies research between an international emphasis on comparative positivist scholarship which owes a debt to political communication, and a more North ...
Fabio Giglietto (Università di Urbino Carlo Bo) Abstract The advent of pervasive and connected digital technologies has profoundly affected both the way in which politicians interact with citizens and supporters and the way in which scholars study political communication. In the context of this ongoing transformation, this paper focuses on the role played by «big data» analytics. The large availability of digital footprints left by citizens in their everyday use of digital technologies have created possibilities for new forms of collaboration, advertisement, and propaganda. While political actors embrace these new strategies, media scholars studying political communication must adjust their methodologies ...
Patrizia Catellani (Università Cattolica di Milano) Abstract The development of online political communication has profoundly changed the way in which we relate to political reality. Some features of the internet favor the use of fast and intuitive ways of thinking that, despite having various advantages, also come with several drawbacks. These drawbacks are reduced when citizens use slower and more reflective ways of thinking. In this paper, we will see how citizens resort to fast and slow thinking when they use the internet to relate to issues and political actors. In doing this, we will focus on some phenomena that ...
Stefano Ondelli (Università degli Studi di Trieste) Abstract Traditionally, Italian linguistics has considered political discourse as an example of the per- suasive use of rhetorical strategies by means of specific linguistic structures. The language of politicians is not a special language because it lacks proper terminology. However, research- ers have focused on its lexis from the perspective of its history, morphology and metaphorical uses, according to a traditional approach investigating the connection between the history of the Italian language and the history of Italian culture. In contrast to this, they have paid less attention to pragmatic aspects; i.e. they are ...
Giovanna Cosenza (Università degli Studi di Bologna) Abstract The article attempts to summarize the way in which certain concepts from general semi- otics and some of its applications (mainly visual semiotics and semantic analysis) can be of use to contemporary thinking around political communication. It focuses on two general tendencies within western political communication, that have been cutting across parties, leaders and nations over the last decades: a tendency to construct binary oppositions and the storytelling fashion. Indeed, semiotics can offer political communication studies some- thing original, something which otherwise, without its contribution, would remain neglect- ed, unconceptualized or unexpressed ...
Lidia De Michelis (Università degli Studi di Milano) Abstract My essay aims to provide an overview of some recent trends and transformations which have emerged in the fields of cultural studies, British and Anglophone fiction and critical discourse analysis vis-à-vis the challenges posed by the new communication ecosystems and online environments since the advent of social and digital media, new technological affordances and user-generated contents. Drawing on Stuart Hall and Lawrence Grossberg, I shall attempt to address what appears to be a convergence among the different areas of scholarship represented in this issue by suggesting the adoption of a «conjunctural» ...
John Street (East Anglia University & University of Melbourne) Abstract The electoral success of Donald Trump has fuelled once again the suggestion that political communication is intimately linked to popular culture. In this article, I trace the different routes taken by this connection – from the representation of politics in popular culture to the rise of celebrity politics and the idea of citizens as «fans». My suggestion is that our understanding of contemporary political communication needs to take account of its affinities with popular culture, but that we are still some way from substantiating how the relationship operates in practice ...