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Mediated Persona and Political Culture
... We contend that no text is neutral, including that which involves code-switching; politicians make use of certain rhetorical and discourse strategies in their political discourse to persuade voters to subscribe to their viewpoint (see Weiss & Wodak 2003). Political speech, in particular, is strategically planned to be convincing, to appeal to the emotions of voters, to portray a particular political persona (Corner 2003), and to "construct alliances and membership" (Wodak 2004). The current study presents an attempt to investigate the use of code-switching by Senator Kaine as one type of persuasive rhetorical-discursive device during his campaign for presidency in 2016. ...
... Political discourse is inherently different from other types of discourse (Hay 2013) in that the promotion of individual and party interests is valued over everything else, and therefore calculated deceit is a routine practice (Corner 2003). Since a politician's main goal when speaking is to persuade the audience to their position, they are naturally attuned to every verbal nuance in their discourse (e.g., Davletbaeva, Yashina & Sharafieva 2016;Mirzaei, Eslami, & Safari, 2017;Ponton, 2016;Quam, & Ryshina-Pankova, 2016). ...
Language and Ideology is an area of critical discourse analysis that has increasingly gained importance in the linguistic sciences. The vast influence of the media has provided a need for the explicit analysis of common linguistic mechanisms, particularly those in political discourse. Codeswitching, general pattern in a speech community of switching between two or more available languages or dialects with respect to certain extralinguistic factors (Blom & Gumperz 1972) is strategically employed by politicians to gain support for elections (Jarraya 2013; Craig 2013). Senator Tim Kaine was one of the first White politicians to engage in code-switching during the 2016 presidential election, however his use of Spanish when engaging in political discourse was met with great resistance and skepticism by the media and voters, many of whom felt that he was pandering to Spanish-speaking citizens. Using a language ideologies framework, the present paper seeks to determine how code-switching was used as a political discourse device by Senator Kaine, and how its use varied based on the context of each speech. To answer these questions, four speeches given by Senator Tim Kaine during the 2016 presidential campaign were transcribed and translated. Following descriptive coding procedures by Saldaña (2015), two raters coded instances of codeswitching in each speech for key features of political discourse: a) dissemination of personal information or background; b) repetition; c) hyperbole; d) metaphor; e) metonymy; f) comparisons; 1. promises for the future; h) solidarity; i) legitimization of self as authority; and j) florid verbiage. Results show that Senator Kaine relied most heavily on code-switching during his speech in Miami, Florida, and used it as a tactic to gain support and build solidarity between himself and members of the audience. Additionally, Senator Kaine engaged in much repetition through code-switching to emphasize key points of his speech and political goals. The present study illustrates how codeswitching can be used to cultivate political favor, forge alliances, and demonstrate cultural similarities between White politicians and biand multilingual voters.
... We contend that no text is neutral, including that which involves code-switching; politicians make use of certain rhetorical and discourse strategies in their political discourse to persuade voters to subscribe to their viewpoint (see Weiss & Wodak 2003). Political speech, in particular, is strategically planned to be convincing, to appeal to the emotions of voters, to portray a particular political persona (Corner 2003), and to "construct alliances and membership" (Wodak 2004). The current study presents an attempt to investigate the use of code-switching by Senator Kaine as one type of persuasive rhetorical-discursive device during his campaign for presidency in 2016. ...
... Political discourse is inherently different from other types of discourse (Hay 2013) in that the promotion of individual and party interests is valued over everything else, and therefore calculated deceit is a routine practice (Corner 2003). Since a politician's main goal when speaking is to persuade the audience to their position, they are naturally attuned to every verbal nuance in their discourse (e.g., Davletbaeva, Yashina & Sharafieva 2016;Mirzaei, Eslami, & Safari, 2017;Ponton, 2016;Quam, & Ryshina-Pankova, 2016). ...
The present paper accentuates the importance of holistic views of the world that is relevant for text studies. The purpose of the study is to establish what language means representing emotions which are attributed to God by biblical characters are utilized, and, subsequently provide their classification. Based on the study of the theological interpretation of the antinomy ‘“the immutability of God” - the emotions of God”, the paper 1) introduces the concept of ‘attribution of emotions’ into the conceptual and terminological apparatus of emotiology thus explicating the specificity of biblical emotive meanings; 2) provides the analysis of the depicted biblical space in the emotive aspect; 3) gives the interpretation of biblical characters’ activity as a cause of emotions attributed to God. Central to the text analysis is the notion of the emotional script. This notion is instrumental in presenting the systemic description of emotion development, i.e. the cause of its origin and the corresponding reaction. The language material of the present study is taken from King James Bible. The methods employed in the study include the definitional, contextual, emotive, and lingua-stylistic analyses with references to the historical and cultural context. The outcomes of the present study include the identification of the lexical means of emotions and the following typology of such lexical units: 1) lexemes denoting the cause of emotions attributed to God; 2) lexemes denoting the emotions attributed to God; and 3) lexemes denoting the biblical space perceived by characters as a ‘reaction’ to emotions attributed to God. Given the theandric nature of Jesus Christ, the depicted emotions of His are treated as manifestations of His human nature. The results obtained have made it possible to fill in linguistic content into one of the antinomies of Christian understanding of God and to outline the prospect of further linguistic research on Christian dogmata from the perspective of emotivity.
... The programme suggested that, even if Galloway was acting 'out of role' (Corner, 2003) as a contestant in a reality television programme, in order to appear like us, he had failed because of his lack of authenticity. He was described as 'embarrassing' when he mimed a cat; labelled as 'reaching new levels of cringe' with his 'daddancing' when he impersonated Elvis Presley; and 'inappropriate' when he wore a leotard. ...
... George Galloway's 'in role' (Corner, 2003) behaviour during CBB06, and the particular deception and evasiveness that was implicit within it, meant that he was portrayed as untrustworthy. This was well exemplified during a punishment inflicted on Galloway and another contestant (Preston) for openly discussing nominations (whereas the vote should have been kept secret). ...
In 2006, George Galloway MP appeared in Celebrity Big Brother. His participation produced a public outcry from people concerned that a politician should take part in a reality TV show instead of looking after their constituency. Even when the MP justified his action as an attempt to raise awareness about politics among young people, critics maintained their scepticism. This article suggests that the rhetoric of ‘ordinariness’, ‘authenticity’ and ‘trust’ exploited in Celebrity Big Brother 2006 (CBB06) frame an understanding of representation that is rooted in the UK’s model of Public Service Broadcasting, and that this should be seen as political. Drawing upon democratic theory and using the case of CBB06, this article evaluates how popular television programmes like Big Brother articulate political ideas and values that should be taken seriously by political scientists.
... U svakom slučaju, istraživati dodirne točke celebrity kulture i medijatizacije politike u svjetlu "digitalne revolucije" znači registrirati brze i značajne promjene koje se odigravaju u tim vibrantnim područjima. Onkraj političkih institucija i procesa, izvan tradicionalnih gabarita političkog radnog mjesta, ondje se otvara nešto što je najbolje imenovati "političkim izlogom" (Corner 2003). ...
The paper discusses a specific intersection of the politics, celebrity, and digital culture. In the last few decades, more and more people from the entertainment realm entered the world of institutional politics trying to leverage their popularity. Thanks to the media, they manage to transfer their celebrity capital, namely accumulated media visibility and recognisability (Driesens 2013) into the political sphere. In the beginning, they improve their visibility with the help of mass media that place their personas and private lives in the focus of public attention. However, with the digitalization of the media, the popular-political landscape has changed (Marshall 2020), so today they have dispositional new bases for practising personalized politics, i.e. imposing their personality instead of political party programmes. In this paper, attention is directed to former American president Donald Trump, president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Miroslav Škoro, who was a candidate in the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections in Croatia. Although there were obvious differences between these three celebrities mentioned before entering the political arena, their later use of social networks vividly shows how they built their political/pandemic persona in the evolving mediatization of politics.
... Accordingly, politicians try to control and disseminate information to shape their public image and persona. Political staff frame how their boss appears in controlled communications such as photographs and advertising, which contributes to shaping a mediated persona that, they hope, will convey that the politician is accessible and busy representing constituents (Corner and Pels, 2003). In Canada, the political environment of strict party discipline is a formidable contextual element given that party leaders and their agents encourage message consistency from MPs (Marland, 2016;McGrane, 2017). ...
What determines how Members of Parliament (MPs) and their staff frame their communications with all constituents in their electoral district? Prior research has suggested that constituency operations are one of the last bastions of freedom that MPs have from the full grasp of party discipline in Canada. If this remains true, MP communications with their constituents should reflect the MPs’ background or the constituency context and not their political partisanship. We collected a sample of published newsletters (“householders”) that Canadian MPs’ offices sent to all households in their electoral districts during the COVID-19 pandemic. We supplement our analysis with original insights about householders from a selection of MPs and their staff. Our results suggest that in a system of strict party discipline, the most important predictor of what MPs include in their constituent communications is indeed partisanship. The results inform our understanding of democratic representation, centralized co-ordination and political communication, and the pervasiveness of partisan messaging in Canada.
... En el actual contexto democrático, estos aspectos performativos cobran renovada importancia debido al declive de los clivajes tradicionales y el debilitamiento de la afiliación partidista. La medialización de la vida social fuerza a los actores políticos a actuar, proyectarse y hacerse visibles a través de los canales mediáticos en las esferas pública, privada e institucional (Corner, 2003). Para los defensores de este enfoque, el populismo puede entonces definirse como un estilo político que emplea el antagonismo pueblo/élite, exhibe "malos modales" y pone en escena una crisis o amenaza mediante su dramatización y espectacularización (Moffit, 2016, p. 45). ...
En el texto al que quisiera dar aquí respuesta, o, más exactamente, con el que quisiera conversar, José María Lassalle abunda en los argumentos desarrollados en su último y enjundioso libro (Lassalle, 2017). Su diagnóstico sobre el fenómeno populista es a la vez original y plausible, en la medida en que rehúye los lugares comunes y apunta hacia factores cuyo papel en la génesis y expansión de los movimientos populistas no ha recibido la atención suficiente. No tengo así objeciones insuperables contra sus tesis, que en lo que sigue me limitaré a glosar o complementar…
... As the Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, Dan Jørgensen is the most high-profi le politician concerned with climate change. Corner (2003), Street (2003), and van Zoonen (2005 have all argued that politicians operate within celebrity culture. Jørgensen's Instagram account @danj.klimaminister ...
This article is a comparative study of how three Danish climate celebrities – an activist, an influencer, and a politician – personalise climate change on Instagram. They engage in personal storytelling about the issue in a way that is closely connected to their public presentation of self and their choice of visual genres. The theoretical framework combines theories of social media aesthetics and publics (Serafinelli, 2018; Papacharissi, 2015), self-presentation (Marshall, 2010), authenticity (Enli, 2015a; Marwick, 2015), and emotion in political communication (Wahl- Jorgensen, 2019). The method is a qualitative case study comparing the three profiles and their overall curational strategy for addressing climate change through particular visual genres and how their personal storytelling is based on performing authenticity, emotion, and connecting with affective publics. The analysis demonstrates how personalising climate change can be performed as coping with climate anxiety, feel-good sustainable consumption, or enthusiastic promotion of Danish green solutions.
... On the one hand, celebrities' possibly extraordinary life should be "domesticated" and "humanized," for them to authentically interconnect with their followers and feeling like intimate, yet distinguished persons-personalities (Chouliaraki, 2013). On the other hand, a possibly peculiar or idiosyncratic ordinary celebrity self should be "popularized" and "universalized," for it to authentically embody a public persona of high recognizability and potential virality (Chouliaraki, 2013; see also Corner, 2003;Marshall et al., 2015). This is a challenge that applies both to legacy-status and influencer-style celebrities, as it is builtin platforms' media performativity itself, in the sense that the platformized logics of media performing regulate, emotionally and normatively-morally, the ways in which celebrities embody an ordinary persona (instead of another) and advocate for a certain people (instead of another). ...
This article is interested in populism outside the master frame of institutional politics (populist parties/leaders), considering, instead, the populist potential of celebrities’ everyday politics on social media. To understand this potential, the article suggests, we need to understand how celebrities are compelled by today’s mediatized communicative ecosystem to perform themselves as ordinary advocates for people-victims. We need to examine how the performative logic that this ecosystem forces into platforms accommodates certain emotional claims to ordinariness and normative-moral claims to advocacy—who is (un)worthy of a place in the victimized people that celebrities should advocate for. The article does so by analyzing two paradigmatically different case studies: Lady Gaga’s legacy-status and Greta Thunberg’s influencer-style performances of celebrity advocacy on Instagram. The analytical discussion leads to contemplating the mediatized populist politics of everyday politics that both perform, despite their differences, and its ambivalent relationship with liberal democracy (centrist moderation and neoliberal consolidation).
... A political persona is a figure who became well known for political reasons, and (or) who has a widely mediated impact on politics. 24 By contrast, a 'scientific persona', 'journalistic persona', or 'cultural critic persona' is tied to those respective fields. 25 The relevance of political persona is not new: the Florentine political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli already noted that, for a politician to be successful, the importance of image trumped that of reality. ...
... The process that political communication undergoes in the course of being broadcast, reported, posted, shared and otherwise engaged with through media is changing, in established as well as transitional democracies. These changes place new demands, opportunities and risks on the performance of the political persona (Corner, 2003). How do populist performances of representation meet the media's demands so as to ensure successful mediation? ...
This chapter sets out a broad theoretical framework for approaching populism from a communication perspective. It reviews classifications of populism as ideology and style, respectively, and appreciates the value of both the content of populism’s ideas and the process of displaying them to an audience. It argues that populism’s strengths are inherent in the communicative process of manifesting content in form, a process that is analogous to the political performance of ideology. These mirror processes of meaning-making merge in the concept of representation as a process that is at once aesthetic and political. The chapter suggests that populist representative claim-making disrupts the dominant mode of representation through a particularly responsive and consequential engagement with the given democratic context.
... The process that political communication undergoes in the course of being broadcast, reported, posted, shared and otherwise engaged with through media is changing, in established as well as transitional democracies. These changes place new demands, opportunities and risks on the performance of the political persona (Corner, 2003). How do populist performances of representation meet the media's demands so as to ensure successful mediation? ...
How can we make sense of the current age of global political disruption when populism leaves norms overturned and the future form of democracy unpredictable?
Political representatives are no longer elected for their experience and expertise but out of a desire for an ephemeral sense of authenticity, a direct connection to citizens, and the certainty of the truths they tell. But when populists project these ideas and claim to represent the citizenry, what is reality and what is strategic performance for the media presence and an invented ‘people’? This conceptually rich book explores the performative strategies of the populist politicians who disrupt the normative order with acts of ‘truth-telling’. It disentangles their complex use of media—from their appeal to news values through spectacular disruptions to sophisticated social media commentary—in repertoires of mediated performances. Based on vigorous empirical research in both established and transitional democracies, it develops a theoretical framework of populist communication in the new media environment.
... This can be explained in light of the mediatisation of politics and the "paradox of media-adapted politics" (Ekström and Eriksson 1999;Eriksson 2002). Politicians adapt to the media and the factual political issues are eclipsed by how politicians are portrayed (Corner 2003). ...
With the advent of strong neoliberal currents in political life after the 1980’s, many young people have been retreating from political participation. Youth around the world have increasingly been accused of being apolitical. In the wake of the events and aftermath of 9/11 in 2001, however, we have witnessed an emerging panorama of political action and transformation for people of all ages, but especially among the young. In the Turkish political context, political corruption, the impact of the global information society, as well as candidacy to EU have been important factors that have triggered political mobilization in the beginning of the 21st century. The absence of an age-based quota that could open the door for younger members in the Turkish parliament, as well as the age-limit itself for candidacy (originally set at 30 years of age) were considered significant topics that galvanized Turkish young people’s engage- ment prior to the general elections that took place in November 2007. Strong public opinion was formed by the mediation of relevant NGOs, think-tanks, media and ombudsmen, and in less than a year’s time the age of eligibility for holding elected office was reduced to 25 in October 2006. This would not have been possible without the huge ICT campaign initiated by civic and political youth groups, organized on a local and national level. This paper investigates this campaign in terms of its scale and impact on the dynamics of the Turkish political system, and attempts to bring out its theoretical significance.
... Recent studies of how new media affect the personal vote focus on how the internet allows candidates to create/expand a personalised image and how voters are now coming to expect more relatable and accessible politicians (Comer, 2003;Gulati, 2004;Stanyer, 2008). Livak et al (2011: p.459) conclude that websites allow candidates to express their own opinions, which may even run contrary to the party line, and to fund local campaign activities: "It seems that adopting personal websites…is another step in the in the disassociation of the individual politician from his party". ...
This paper examines how new media is affecting candidate personal vote seeking behaviour, at the constituency level by comparing data from general elections in two countries with different styles of campaigning – party-centred campaigning in the United Kingdom (2015 & 2017) and candidate-centred campaigning Japan (2014 & 2017). By utilising both content analysis of candidates’ use of new media platforms and in-person interviews with candidates, this study gives a deep description of how individual candidates are using online campaigning and to what degree they are pursuing a personal, rather than party vote. This study confirms that that Japanese candidates use new media to run more candidate centred campaigns, replicating traditional campaign styles, but also finds that other factors, namely candidates’ levels of experience and the strength of the national party, play a role in how candidates utilise new media. Now more so than ever, candidates are relying on personal image promotion as a major element of their campaigns.
... In the last fifty years, the mediazation of politics has placed an increasing emphasis on the role of the entire performance of politicians. In our "audience" or "spectator democracy" (Green, 2010;Manin, 1997), it no longer mostly matters what politicians say; the manner in which they express themselves-the way they speak, look, and act-has gained great influence (Corner, 2003;Corner & Pels, 2003;Edelman, 1988;Pels & Te Velde, 2000;Street, 2003). In order to understand current politics, we not only have to understand the meaning of the various expressed ideas; somehow, we must make sense of what is expressed in the images and soundbites that accompany these ideas. ...
Populism is on the rise as a global phenomenon, causing polarization
and societal unrest. This dissertation provides a new perspective on
this political development. It defines populism as directly related to
elitism and pluralism, the three concepts inhabiting one shared logic
across three dimensions. When existing in all three dimensions —
ideas, action, and presentation — populism is inevitably in contradiction
with itself, however, analyzing the dimensions separately reveals
the dimension in which populism is predominantly enacted. This new
insight into populism is used to construct an analysis tool for political
style that can address more than just populism — all political styles,
including the mainstream, can be assessed. Political styles are plotted
onto a logical triangular field according to their incorporation of
populist, elitist, and pluralist elements. This enables a detailed
comparison of styles. The tool helps to provide insight into diverse
political situations, varying from the Brexit campaign to the
2016 US presidential campaign.
... Ice dancing, as mentioned in the previous section, is somewhat unusual as a sport because it relies on performance. Ice dancers must take on a specific kind of 'mediated persona' (Weiss 2013; see also Corner 2003) in the pursuit of their sport: specifically, they must adopt the personae of heteroromantic lovers. It is not dissimilar from professional wrestling in this sense, which also relies on mediated personae via the notion of 'kayfabe', the illusion of reality (Phillips 2007, p. 74). ...
At the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, Canadian ice dance pair Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won two gold medals, making them the most decorated Olympic figure skaters of all time. However, it was not their on-ice achievements that dominated coverage; rather, it was the possibility that were in an off-ice romantic relationship.
This article explores why Virtue and Moir were read so relentlessly as romantically involved in coverage of the Pyeongchang Olympics. Using a corpus of approximately seventy articles written about the pair in February 2018, it combines two different reading methods: a distant reading to elucidate patterns, and a close reading for thematic analysis. It finds that Virtue and Moir were read romantically because they embodied two different romantic discourses: the discourses of ‘romance’ and ‘intimacy’ as outlined by David Shumway, which emphasise passion and emotional closeness respectively. It concludes that Virtue and Moir were read not just as romantically involved but as ‘couple goals’, because of their apparent success in embodying these two (not necessarily mutually agreeable) discourses, which highlights cultural narratives about romantic love in the Anglophone cultural imagination.
... However, none of them is comprehensive enough to conclude the strategically established intimacy between source and its receiver. For example, the tendency of secularizing politician's public persona appears as helpful strategy in decreasing the distance between political figure and public (Corner, 2003;Marshall, 1997). The emphasis of an ordinary and private persona, as Marshall puts in, could be seen as a converged construction of politics and entertainment, in which links one's personality into his or her political ideology (Marshall, 1997). ...
This study examines the strategies of political impression management adopted by the Weibo account Liyuan Fan Club from a source credibility perspective, investigating the capacity of each strategy in encouraging online political participation through measuring consumer’s online brand-related activities (i.e. consuming, contributing, and creating). In addition to traditional dimensions of source credibility (i.e. expertise and attractiveness), a new dimension, namely “closeness,” is added in based on previous studies in political branding and celebrity studies. A content analysis of 790 posts is conducted, in which the study finds that emphasis on Peng’s attractiveness and closeness have positive effects on participatory behaviors on social media, while emphasis on Peng’s expertise show no effect. Further analysis indicates that individual contributions of attractiveness and closeness on three levels of participatory behaviors are different, among which attractiveness is more effective in activating low-level participation, while closeness has more positive effect in encouraging high-level participation.
... UKIP and the EFF are performing their disruptive acts in a new media environment that reflects changes in the relationship between politics and the media. Despite the very different con- texts of an established and a transitional democracy, the changing terms of mediation in many ways place similar demands, opportunities and risks on the performance of the political per- sona (Corner, 2003). Visibility has become a double-edged sword that makes representatives vulnerable to the constant dangers of scandal, gaffes, leaks and exposed outbursts (Thompson, 2005, p 41ff) while giving visibility entrepreneurs (Dayan, 2013) the opportunity to access power through new tools of visibility management. ...
The changing terms of mediation place new demands, opportunities and risks on the performance of the political persona. Visibility has become a double-edged sword, leaving representatives vulnerable to exposure while new tools provide opportunities for emerging entrepreneurial actors. This double risk to elites’ mediated personas—exposure and challenge from entrepreneurs—renders their armour of authenticity dangerously fragile, which nourishes a public sense of being inefficaciously represented. It is this climate in which populism currently flourishes around the globe. Three primary criteria of mediated self-representation by politicians—visibility, authenticity and efficacy—form the focus of this paper: how do populists negotiate such demands in different democratic contexts, and wherein lies the symbiosis between populism and the new media environment suggested by the literature?
To answer this, the paper compares two populist cases responding to different democratic contexts: UKIP, a right-wing party from an established democracy (UK), and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a left-wing party from a transitional democracy (South Africa). The objects of study are disruptive performances by these parties, which are considered emblematic manifestations of populist ideology as they establish a Manichaean relationship between the elite and populist actors who embody the people. The paper introduces disruption as a multi-faceted and significant analytical concept to explain the populist behaviour and strategies that underlie populist parties’ responses to the demands for visibility, authenticity and efficacy that the new media environment places upon political representatives. Using mixed methods with an interpretive focus, the paper paints a rich picture of the contexts, meanings and means of construction of populist performances.
... Existing research has tended to focus on political debates as an arena for conflict and argument, and has therefore focused on issues of linguistic (im)politeness (Blas-Arroyo 2003;Garcia-Pastor 2006 and the sequential organisation of talk (Beck 1996;Bilmes 1992Bilmes , 1999. In contrast, the research presented here views televised political debates primarily as a form of political marketing (De Landtsheer et al. 2008;Lees-Marshment 2004) and takes as its object of study the discursive construction of identities and political personae (Corner 2003). It asks how politicians are able to position themselves, their opponents and the television audience in relation to emergent identity categories and subject positions, and how such positioning functions strategically to further political and ideological goals. ...
Book of Abstracts of the 6th Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines Conference (CADAAD 2016)
... Monikanavaisessa ja fragmentoituneessa mediaympäristössä poliitikkojen on entistä vaikeampi kontrolloida vahingollista informaatiota ja kuvastoa (Hayden 2002;McNair 2000McNair , 2006). Politiikassa myös puolueet ovat heikentyneet ja poliittisten keulakuvien ja johtajien merkitys on entistä ratkaisevampi (Karvonen 2010;McAllister 2007;Stanyer & Wring 2004) ja poliitikot suunnittelevat julkiset esiintymistyylinsä tarkkaan (Corner 2003;Pels 2003;Van Santen & Van Zoonen 2009). Samaan aikaan on ilmaantunut uusia järjestöjä ja liikkeitä (Moran 2008, 76), joille julkisuudesta on tullut tärkeä vaikutuskanava (Anderson 1993, 54-66;Davis 2002, 120-121). ...
Viestintätoimistojen, konsulttien ja muiden PR-ammattilaisten käyttö on lisääntynyt Suomessa 2000-luvulla ja levinnyt entistä enemmän yrityselämästä julkiselle sektorille ja järjestöihin. Tässä artikkelissa kuvaamme tämän promootioyhteiskunnan keskeisen ammattikunnan kasvua ja työkäytäntöjä: miten ja millä keinoilla viestinnän ammattilaiset pyrkivät vaikuttamaan julkisuuteen? Tulkitsemme ammattikunnan nousua osana yhteiskunnan laajempaa muutosta ja pohdimme myös viestinnän konsultoitiin liittyviä kysymyksiä journalismin ohittamisesta, konsultoinnin läpinäkyvyydestä sekä rahan vallasta julkisuuden hallinnassa ja lobbauksessa. Artikkeli perustuu vuonna 2013 tehtyihin viestintäammattilaisten haastatteluihin.
... Corner and Pels, for example, in their edited book Media and the Restyling of Politics (2003b) aim to engage with the 'aesthetics of the political self'what they call 'political style' (Corner and Pels 2003a: 6). The contributing chapters to their volume, however, not only remain rather abstract (Ankersmit 2003;Pels 2003;Corner 2003) but also end up conforming with the main existing avenues of researchagain the analysis of political campaigning (Bennett 2003), the connections of political communication with popular culture (Simons 2003;Street 2003;van Zoonen 2003) and political marketing (Scammell 2003). ...
The way politicians 'look' is taken to be one of the essential aspects of the 'mediatization' and 'professionalization' of politics. Yet there is very little research about the role of image and self-presentation in political communication. This article presents the results of a study that aims to fill this gap by mapping where and how image fits within broader processes of identity and meaning construction in contemporary politics. On the basis of 51 interviews, it compares the role of personal image in the everyday political practices of both British and Italian local politicians and members of the European Parliament. The analysis develops an alternative conceptual framework to make sense of the role of image in twenty-first century politics, showing that the alleged deleterious effects of a 'cult of appearances' on democracy reflects more the narrowness of academic enquiry and the legacy of outdated linear models of politics-media relationships than the much more variegated and networked reality of contemporary politics.
... Meanwhile, politicians and parties themselves are apparently pursuing more personalized, candidate-centred campaigns and placing their leader at the centre of campaign communication strategy (Corner 2000(Corner , 2003Gulati 2004;Pels 2003;Van Santen and Van Zoonen 2009;Zittel 2015). For their part, contemporary politicians are argued to be attempting to cultivate a three-dimensional public persona-one that combines both competence and professionalism with ordinariness (Langer 2007). ...
The concept of personalization has increasingly become central to our understanding of political communication, particularly during election time. With the rise of social media such as Twitter, which places more focus on individual politicians and opens up more direct links with voters, the opportunities for more personalized campaigning have been expanded. Although studies of personalization in politics and online campaigning have been popular avenues of research in the last 20 years, an empirically-led understanding of the nexus between the two is still underdeveloped, at least with respect to Twitter. In this paper, through an analysis of the ‘personal’ tweeting behaviors of Dutch candidates in the 2012 general election, we therefore attempt to understand how politicians in an advanced Western democracy attempt to disclose aspects of the private life through social media – which aspects these are and how they are intermingled with the ‘political’.
... As Figure 9.3 indicates, personal tweets account for only 7% of the tweets cited, which is in line with Broersma and Graham's (2012) While personal tweets were few and far between, humorous tweets were a more popular source for journalists. Humour can also be considered part of the mediated persona, helping a politician look likeable (Corner 2003). The tweets cited here were often in the form of political humour: the use of humour as an expression of a political argument and/or criticism, which is a powerful communicative tool in politics (Ducharme 1994 Finally, it is worth considering how the journalists quoted tweets. ...
If you are a frequent reader of newspapers, you might have come across articles in which tweets are directly cited as sources. This practice by journalists has become common since the emergence of Twitter as one of the most popular social media platforms, raising questions over the impact it is having on sourcing practices and the journalist-source relation. In this chapter, we investigate this phenomenon by analysing how Dutch journalists use Twitter as a source in political news coverage at four national dailies. We ask how, and to what extent, Twitter is contributing to the agenda-building process – the process by which news organisations and journalists determine what to cover. Through the use of a content analysis, we track and analyse the citation of tweets by focusing on the type of actors cited; the function cited tweets served in the news stories; the nature of the tweets cited (e.g. factual, opinion); and finally, the dominant quoting practices. Our findings contribute to our understanding of the ways in which the use of Twitter shapes political news coverage.
... Meanwhile, politicians and parties themselves are apparently pursuing more personalized, candidate-centred campaigns and placing their leader at the centre of campaign communication strategy (Corner 2000(Corner , 2003Gulati 2004;Pels 2003;Van Santen and Van Zoonen 2009;Zittel 2015). For their part, contemporary politicians are argued to be attempting to cultivate a three-dimensional public persona-one that combines both competence and professionalism with ordinariness (Langer 2007). ...
The concept of personalization has increasingly become central to our understanding of political communication especially during election time. With the rise of social media platforms such as Twitter, which places more focus on individual politicians and opens up more direct links with voters, the opportunities for more personalized campaigning have been expanded. Although studies of personalization in politics and online campaigning have been popular avenues of research in the last 20 years, an empirically driven understanding of the nexus between the two is still underdeveloped. In this chapter, through an analysis of the ‘personal’ tweeting behaviours of British and Dutch candidates in the 2010 general election campaigns, we attempt to understand how politicians disclose aspects of their private life through social media: which aspects these are and how they are intermingled with the ‘political’.
... Andere Projekte und Ergebnisse muss ich vernachlässigen, wie die Untersuchung der kommunikativen Verfasstheit im Europäischen Konvent 2002/03 (ein von der Österreichischen Nationalbank gefördertes Projekt; vgl. Krzyżanowski & Oberhuber, 2007) Challen, 2001;Corner, 2003;Corner & Pels, 2003;Couldry, 2004;Pompper, 2003;Riegert, 2007a,b;Van Zoonen, 2005). ...
In Zeiten mehrfacher Krisen befindet sich die Zufriedenheit der europäischen BürgerInnen auf einem Tiefstand.
Zwar kann diskurs-soziolinguistische Forschung kein Rezept gegen Frustration bieten. Doch Wissen
und Einblick in politische Prozesse ermöglichen ein Verstehen von Entscheidungsverläufen – und damit eine
Abkehr von verzerrenden und hilflosen Verschwörungstheorien.
In der Tradition des »Symbolischen Interaktionismus« und der Kritischen Diskursforschung beschäftigt Ruth
Wodak sich mit der jeweils eigenen Logik in Organisationen, die Außenseitern häufig unverständlich bleibt
und irrational erscheint. Wie fallen Entscheidungen? Welche Machtspiele sind dabei involviert? Wer besitzt
welches Wissen, wer mischt mit, wer ist ausgeschlossen? Wo wird wirklich entschieden und warum?
Ministers are performing from the moment of appointment, making decisions, demanding briefings, and speaking for their department or government in the parliamentary chamber, in front of a committee, to an audience of informed stakeholders, or in the media.
Originating in social media, an unconventional gendered political persona, “hot Taiwanese girl (la tai mei),” of the incumbent President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen has become well-known in Taiwan and beyond. Drawing on frameworks of femininity in politics and political persona on social media, this study scrutinizes this persona as an empowering political tool. Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines Dwagie’s rap song, “Hot Taiwanese Girl,” where the persona was created and the media, cultural and political contexts to reveal that it was used to construct understandings about cross-strait conflicts, create a collective Taiwanese identity and win the political favor of voters in election campaigns of Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party. While this served to subvert the stereotypes of women in politics, the power to interpret femininity remains in the masculine domain. Through the prism of the “hot Taiwanese girl,” this paper seeks to unravel the dynamics between femininity and politics, thereby exploring how the representation of femininity is contingent on the political agenda and its appeals to audiences.
This chapter conceptualises the fit between populist performance and its mediation by mainstream and in social media. It approaches mediation from a social constructivist perspective that accounts for media materiality, imaginaries and institutions. It argues that populists incorporate media technologies and their symbolic properties in performances of mediation in the hybrid media system. Yet populists repudiate both the media and the elites who clamber for their attention to the detriment of democratic representation. In their performance of such anti-media populism, populists acquire control of their own and the elite’s visibility, come across as authentic and inspire efficacy. As visibility, authenticity and efficacy are the very demands placed upon mediated representation in the new media ecology, populists thereby smooth the process of mediating their representative claims.
This article analyses the political style of the Dutch nationalist-populist celebrity politician Geert Wilders and examines the ways in which his self-stylisation epitomises both the strategic use of national imagery, and the affective embodiment of associated sentiments in his public persona. Using insights from imagology, we argue, firstly, that Wilders’ use of national images allows him to align himself with the traditional narrative of Dutch collective resistance to foreign rule and thus to authenticate his political attitude as compliant with that of the Dutch national character. Secondly, turning to the field of celebrity studies, we demonstrate that this self-stylisation also involves a form of emotional work. In speeches, texts, campaign advertisements, and tweets, Wilders projects an affectively charged public self that ‘moves’ the audience and lends a sense of urgency to his politics as well as a feeling of authenticity to his political persona.
The pluralism of online media outlets, as well as the objective of these outlets to be the first to inform on events, may possibly lead these outlets to disrespect professional ethics. This paper will discuss the theoretical and ethical aspects of online media, its regulatory framework and particular cases when the respect of ethical standards when reporting on issues of privacy was potentially violated. This paper uses the purposive sampling method and comparative methods. The paper will examine a case study (where the intimate images of a politician were published), and whether ethical standards were respected in that particular case.
This article argues that the discourses and techniques of political journalism worked to make White working class identity sensible as an assumed norm in American politics during the 2016 US presidential campaign. Throughout the campaign, many news organizations sent journalists to small towns and various Donald Trump rallies to understand what was driving a burbling resentment among his base of White working class voters, and by interrogating the explanatory and long-form reporting produced by these journalists, we can come to understand how the White working class began to cohere as a particular political subjectivity. By documenting the economic decline and social peril borne from neoliberal policies, acts of journalism substantiate the conditions that animate White working class identity and legitimate its resentments. However, that same journalism also failed to adequately deal with the consequences of policy and the way economic conditions and cultural identities reflexively constitute one another, instead focusing on the ways class- and race-based resentments formed a well of political support, constraining any sense of agency to the discursive bounds of a political campaign. This article concludes by arguing that in order to decenter the primacy of whiteness in American politics, it is incumbent upon scholars and observers alike to attend to the various cultural discourses and techniques that render it simultaneously central and invisible.
Cet article aborde les stratégies de personnalisation politique utilisées par les partis et leurs candidats sur le web lors de la campagne électorale législative québécoise de 2012. La personnalisation est souvent étudiée du point de vue des pratiques médiatiques et critiquée pour ses possibles effets pervers. Elle a cependant peu été étudiée du point de vue de la communication de campagne jusqu’à maintenant. Cette étude vise donc à faire ressortir les caractéristiques propres à la construction de l’éthos des politiciens en contexte électoral, à l’ère d’Internet. L’objectif poursuivi est de mieux comprendre comment les partis font la promotion de leurs candidats et de leur chef et comment ils mettent en récit leur parcours, leur personnalité et leurs compétences. L’accent sera-t-il mis sur les réalisations du candidat, sur sa vie privée ? Qu’est-ce que les partis choisiront de révéler à travers leurs discours ? Pour répondre à ces questions, une analyse de contenu quantitative et qualitative des pages biographiques disponibles sur les sites web officiels des principaux partis dans la course lors de l’élection législative québécoise de 2012 a été réalisée afin de mettre en valeur les différentes stratégies utilisées par les partis politiques. Nos analyses révèlent notamment que la manière de se mettre en scène sur le web pour se faire valoir varie selon les partis et leur idéologie. Nous illustrerons l’influence de la personnalisation sur la mise en récit du parcours politique et de la vie privée. Au final, les résultats liés à cette recherche sur les stratégies de personnalisation rejoignent les études sur le web politique et d’autres sur la personnalisation en ligne, qui illustrent le peu d’innovation ainsi que l’accent sur l’information unidirectionnelle diffusée par les partis sur leur site web, révélant plus d’information sur la carrière professionnelle que sur la vie privée.
Back in 2009, the Labour British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was attacked for “bad spelling” in a condolence letter written personally by him to the mother of a soldier who died in combat, and publicised by The Sun newspaper. “Spelling” here acts as a leveller of hierarchical differences in the national political culture, with ruler and subject both publicly disciplined by the same standard language ideology. Previous research on orthography as social practice has tended to focus on deliberate manipulation of fixed spellings; this article extends the approach to unconventional spellings that have come about ‘by mistake’, and also widens it, to consider aspects of orthography other than spelling, focusing on the look of the Prime Minister’s handwriting. At issue, semiotically, are meanings such as ‘the personal touch’ and ‘respect’.
One of the first academic publications to have theorized and emergent historical crisis of public knowledge, belief, and trust, this paper examines several key transformations in mediated
American politics that both encourage the use of rumour as a
privileged communication strategy and promise its efficacy.
Changing institutional news values, communication technologies,
and political public relations (PR) strategies have
converged to produce a profoundly vexing relationship
between rumour and verification, which is exploited by
politicians with anti-deliberative aims of managing belief.
Further, the paper argues that these developments are usefully
viewed through Paul Virilio's theory of Pure War, in
which rumour can be seen as part of a larger propaganda
strategy to eliminate deliberative politics and manage a population
for the purposes of consumerism and war.
Politiikan viihteellistymistä on pidetty jälkimodernina ilmiönä, joka liittyy toisen maailmansodan jälkeiseen mediaan ja etenkin televisioon. Viihteellistymisen on esitetty pilaavan politiikan siirtämällä fokuksen asioista henkilöihin, tunteisiin ja hömppään. Ilmiö on yhdistetty myös jälkimoderneihin identiteetin ja kansalaisuuden rakentumisen muotoihin. Artikkelissamme osoitamme edellä kuvatun näkemyksen politiikan viihteellistymisestä historiattomaksi. Osoitamme 1900-luvun alun suomalaisten sosialistien poliittista toimintaa koskevan tapaustutkimuksen avulla, että viihteen ja politiikan yhtymäkohtia on ollut runsaasti jo tuolloin. Analysoimme sosialistisen politiikan viihteellisyyttä pilalehti Kurikan (1904–1906) ja Ihanneliiton toiminnan (1903–1912) sekä erilaisten sosialististen julkaisujen ja toimintamuotojen avulla. Esitämme havaintonamme, että vaikka sosialistit suhtautuivat varauksellisesti ”ajanvietteeksi” tai ”kaupalliseksi” määritettyyn viihteeseen, sen elementtejä hyödynnettiin tietoisesti ja monin eri tavoin poliittisessa toiminnassa. Analyysimme perusteella politiikkaa on viihteellistetty jo sata vuotta sitten. Politiikan viihteellistämisellä on ollut useita erilaisia funktioita: viihteellä pyrittiin kasvattamaan sosialistien kannattajakuntaa, vahvistamaan sitoutumisastetta sekä tekemään tutuksi järjestäytyneen toiminnan periaatteita ja sosialismin aatetta.
Artikkelissa tutkitaan viihdemedian roolia vaaleissa. Empiirinen aineisto koostuu vuoden 2006 presidentinvaalien yhteydessä tehdystä 14 teemahaastattelusta ja Suomen Gallupin toteuttamasta äänestäjäkyselystä. Aineistojen avulla etsitään vastauksia siihen, mitä merkityksiä kampanjan eri osapuolet antavat viihdejulkisuudelle ja kuinka äänestäjät kokevat viihdemedian vaikuttavan päätöksiinsä: kuinka ”kulttuurinen” ja ”poliittinen” kansalaisuus kohtaavat vaalitilanteessa? Analyysin mukaan viihdemedian roolia ei koettu suureksi. Se lähinnä täydensi ja monipuolisti kuvaa ehdokkaista. Viihdemedian merkityksen uskottiin jopa pienentyneen verrattuna vuosien 1994 ja 2000 vaaleihin, jolloin poliitikkojen esiintyminen esimerkiksi television viihdeohjelmissa oli tuore ilmiö. Poliittinen kansalaisuus peittosi empiirisen aineiston perusteella vaaleissa kulttuurisen. Viihdemedian roolista on kuitenkin hankala tehdä yleistyksiä, koska politiikan ja viihteen arvostuksia sävyttävät vakiintuneet puhetavat ja aihetta on mahdotonta tutkia aukottomasti. Analyysin perusteella politiikan viihdejulkisuuden roolia tulee tarkastella suhteessa kulloiseenkin yhteiskunnalliseen konjunktuuriin ja mediaympäristöön ilman, että se ankkuroidaan yksiselitteisesti kriittisnormatiiviseen teoriaan tai populaaritekstien merkitysvaltaan.
This chapter deals with contemporary drama, comparing primarily English and Danish series but also taking up Scandinavian and other European examples. By telling dual stories of large-scale contemporary conflicts and themes as well as showing scenes from everyday life, contemporary drama can expose the links between the public and private realms. In many ways, everyday life can be seen as the often unnoticed or taken-for-granted reality we all live in but upon which we seldom reflect. The chapter analyses the production and reception of the family-community drama and of the social-political drama. Family life and everyday life is central in these kinds of drama, and, by showing the lives of others, contemporary drama is an important vessel for mediated cultural encounters.
In this introductory chapter, Ekström and Firmstone introduce the overall aim of the book and the theoretical and methodological approach. The approach to political communication is distinctive in three ways. First, we take a contextual approach, analysing the political communication in relation to the tensions and disruptions shaping European politics at a particular moment in time. Second, the book focuses on the performative and discursive dimensions of political communication. An interdisciplinary discourse analytical approach is developed to analyse how the roles and relationships between citizens, politicians and journalists are performed and represented in the media. Finally, we develop a systematic qualitative comparative approach for the cross-national analysis of political discourse. The contribution of the book is discussed in relation to previous research on political communication and media coverage of European Elections. The countries included in the study (France, Greece, Italy, Sweden, UK) are introduced with respect to their historical relationship with the EU, the effects of the economic crisis, the development of Euroscepticism, and the electoral success of mainstream and populist parties.
This chapter draws on multiple interview-based studies of 180 United Kingdom political actors over two decades. It argues that research on media uses and influences on politicians needs to be conceived beyond a single mediatized arena model. Rather, these functions operate across three overlapping communicative spaces: the more private policy arena, the heavily mediatized political arena of a parliament, and the larger public arena (or public sphere) beyond. How political actors use and are influenced by media/journalists varies across these three arenas. After setting out the arenas and findings the model is further illustrated with two short case studies: the election of David Cameron to head of the Conservative Party (2005) and the issues around European Union membership and the recent Brexit vote (2016).
This chapter advocates a more inclusive approach to how we define “political actors” and “the media”. The authors highlight the importance of celebrity entertainers as political actors, both within entertainment formats and within the traditional media arena. Additionally, they point to the ways in which entertainment can function as political media. They argue that increasingly blurred boundaries between “entertainment” and “news” have opened pathways for entertainers to enter and shape the political field, and for political actors of all stripes to use (and be used by) entertainment media. They illustrate their argument with the case of Donald Trump, discussing how Trump was able to gain such high public support in part because the media treated him as an entertainer as much as a candidate.
Exploring the forms and meanings of mediated politics beyond the news cycle, this book encompasses genres drawn from television, radio, the press and the internet, assessing their individual and collective contribution to contemporary political culture through textual analysis and thematic review.
The objective of this paper is to investigate the gendered portrayal of political actors in Nigerian print media and its impact on women’s political participation based on an empirical study. The study adopted a combination of methods – content analysis and cross-sectional survey. A case study of the coverage of the corruption charges of two former Speakers of the lower legislature (male and female, respectively) during the 2007-2011 administration was conducted on two purposely selected daily newspapers – The Punch and The Guardian. To complement the findings of the content analysis, a cross-sectional survey was conducted on a sample size of 100 respondents on their perception of media portrayal of female politicians. Findings of the content analyses revealed that the coverage of the cases was gendered, with the female Speaker’s case being sensationalised, hyped and trivialised. However, the findings of the survey indicate that a majority of the respondents saw the coverage as justifiable, believing the media simply reported the truth about the female Speaker.
In this article, we explore performance and the “dramatic realization” of local female social elites in popular mass-market magazines in Slovenia and Croatia between 2008 and 2011. We argue that popular culture—and, more specifically, celebrity discourse—is one of the central locations for analyzing cultural shifts in gender, nationality, and class in postsocialist society. At the center of the discussion is the argument that ethnicity should not be seen as an independent social process; the rise of national distinctions in the Balkans and the reframing of the nation need to be examined by stressing the rearticulations of class, ethnicity, and gender as they are experienced as organizing categories of social differences. We focus on two genres: social chronicles, or “society pages,” and photo interviews with elite professionals. We investigate the key intersections of gender, class, and nationality and, more generally, reflect on the transformations in discourses of Balkan identity.
Is the media obsession with image leading to a degeneration of politics? Are politicians more concerned with their appearances than with policy substance? Through the evidence provided by over 50 interviews with politicians across the UK and Italy - local councillors, MPs and MEPs - this book provides a very different picture of the world of politics than the one we often cynically imagine. By relying on extensive excerpts from frank and colorful conversations with the interviewees, the analysis develops a new multidisciplinary model to understand the 'mediatization' of politics and the way the personal image of elected representatives is constructed in the age of interconnectedness.
Neoliberalism, Media and the Political examines the condition of media and journalism in neoliberal cultures. Emphasizing neoliberalism's status as a political ideology that is simultaneously hostile to politics, the book presents a critical theoretical argument supported by empirical illustrations from New Zealand, Ireland, the UK and the US.
There are billions of internet users in China, and this number is continually growing. This book looks at the various purposes of this internet use, and provides a study about how the entertainment-consuming users form into publics through the mediation of technologies in the era of network society. It questions how individuals, mediated by new information and communication technologies, come together to form new social categories. The book goes on to investigate how public(s) is formed in the era of network society, with particular focus on how fans become publics in a society that follows the logic of network. Using online surveys and in-depth interviews, this book provides a rich description of the process of constructing a new social formation in contemporary China.
The first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed the emergence of ‘new’ media technologies which have contributed to reshaping the relationships between politicians, journalists and the general public in Western democracies and around the world (Fox and Ramos, 2012; Lilleker and Jackson, 2013). After diverse early attempts in several countries to harness these new tools during election periods, their use by Barack Obama’s campaign team in the 2008 US presidential elections is often cited as one of the first examples in which they appeared to contribute positively to mobilising sympathisers and party activists around the campaign (Thimm, 2011). In the subsequent 2010 UK general election and the 2012 French and US presidential elections, explored in this chapter, all major parties exploited web-based tools, including Facebook and Twitter accounts, websites, blogs and dedicated online platforms used to coordinate local campaign actions.
This book aims to make a much needed contribution to the field of political communication studies. 1 There are two aspects to this initiative. The first, and most important, is the application of techniques of discourse analysis to specific examples of mediated political communication (specifically TV and the Internet), ranging from interviews and election debates, to political speeches and web-based, online communication. Here there is a particular interest in contemporary developments and emerging forms of mediated political communication, such as changing practices of news interviewing, uses of the Internet to develop new campaign strategies (such as those used to promote Barack Obama in the 2008 US presidential election) and the party leader debates which were held for the first time in the UK general election of 2010.
The work of Laclau and Bourdieu can, in one sense, be opposed. If Laclau can be characterized as a political theorist who is antagonistic to a “sociologistic descriptivism” (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 2), Bourdieu can be described as a sociologist who is antagonistic to abstract theory. Laclau (1990) criticizes sociology for occluding the political logic of the social, while Bourdieu (1990) reproaches scholastic articulations of theory for disparaging a positivistic interest in the empirical. To frame the relationship between Laclau and Bourdieu in these blanket terms is simplistic, and we should question to what extent the work of either can be cast in the other’s generic projection. Nonetheless, to stylize their differences in discourse theoretical terms, we can say that while Laclau’s work has been preoccupied with emphasizing the “radical contingency” of social practices, Bourdieu has focused more purposefully on understanding their “sedimentation” and stickiness (Glynos & Howarth, 2007).
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