Suchergebnisse

Is Silvio Berlusconi an Italian anomaly? That's what conventional wisdom suggests. This book argues that while there are aspects of the political adventure of "Il cavaliere" that are linked to well-rooted aspects of Italian culture and history, at the same time Berlusconi represents the prototype of a new model of politics that can be identified in some other democracies - mostly in countries with similar features to Italy. Commodification of politics (the overlapping between politics and consumption) and lifestyle politics are the major changes that the Berlusconi experience points to, not just at the symbolic level but also in terms of new forms of political participation. These changes are linked to the role that television plays as the primary agent of political socialisation. The book provides detailed analysis and case studies to suggest why Silvio Berlusconi may represent a new model of politics for the 21st century.

DEVELOPMENTS IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND OTHER TECHNOLOGIES, COMBINED WITH ACCELERATING PROCESSES OF SOCIAL CHANGE, HAVE FUNDAMENTALLY ALTERED THE CHARACTER OF POLITICAL PARTIES AND GOVERNMENT. THESE FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES ARE SEEN IN THE ASCENDANCY OF A NEW FORM OF POLITICAL PROFESSIONAL -- THE TECHNICAL EXPERT WHO SELLS HIS SERVICES ON THE OPEN MARKET -- AT THE HEART OF DECISION MAKING WITHIN POLITICAL PARTIES AND EVEN GOVERNMENT ITSELF. ALTHOUGH THE FORMS AND EXTENT OF CHANGE VARY FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY, THEY ARE FUELED BY PROCESSES THAT A GLOBALIZING AND HOMOGENIZING. THE RESULTS OF PROCESSES OF GLOBAL CHANGE HAVE BEEN TO MAKE POLITICAL PARTIES INTO "COMMUNICATION MACHINES" DESIGNED TO MANIPULATE VOTERS, TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS A COMMUNICATION STRATEGY, AND TO MAKE POLITICS INCREASINGLY SUBJECT TO THE STEADY ADVANCE OF THE NEW POLITICAL PROFESSIONALISM.

As part of a larger European Union (EU)-funded project, this paper investigates the coverage of corruption and related topics in three European democracies: France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Based on Freedom House data, these countries are characterized by different levels of press freedom. A large corpus of newspaper articles (107,248 articles) from the period 2004 to 2013 were analyzed using dedicated software. We demonstrate that freedom of press is not the only dimension that affects the ability to and the way in which news media report on corruption. Because of its political partisanship, the Italian press tends to emphasize and dramatize corruption cases involving domestic public administrators and, in particular, politicians. The British coverage is affected mainly by market factors, and the press pays more attention to cases occurring abroad and in sport. The French coverage shares specific features with both the British and the Italian coverage: Newspapers mainly focus on corruption involving business companies and foreign actors, but they also cover cases involving domestic politicians. Media market segmentation, political parallelism, and media instrumentalization determine different representations preventing the establishment of unanimously shared indignation.