Mass media and politics: political communication in Italy in the digital age

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The relationship between mass media and politics has always been somewhat controversial.

On the one hand, Italian politics has always been present first in the newspapers and on the radio, then on TV, today more than ever on social networks.

On the other hand, over the years there have been Specific Database slips and misunderstandings mainly due to a lack of knowledge of political communication.

Because even political communication, on balance, is a form of communication (and marketing) that requires in-depth analysis, sensitivity and even a particular courage, not within everyone's reach.

Who deals with political communication in Italy today?

What were the turning points in Italian political propaganda?

In this article, we retrace the relationship between the mass media and politics starting from the era in which everything changed: the two-year period '92-'94, with the political rise of Silvio Berlusconi.

In this article
Mass media and politics: television
Mass media and politics: the blog of Beppe Grillo and the 5 Star Movement
Political propaganda: the electoral campaign arrives on social media
Matthew Salvini
Giorgia Meloni
Joseph Conte
Silvio Berlusconi
Conclusions
Mass media and politics: television
Why does knowing this piece of history of Italian political communication help us understand what is happening today?

Simple: the then president of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi, dictated a new way of talking about politics.

A way closer to marketing than to political communication known until then.



The focal points of the changes brought about by Berlusconi are three:

Forza Italia concept. The new party was very distant from the two main parties of the time, the Christian Democrats and the Communist Party. The difference was above all in ideology: very strong in the two parties, almost absent in Forza Italia. Berlusconi's political propaganda is very "market-oriented", he treats the party as a product to be sold. And, in doing so, he makes use of a very powerful tool: storytelling.

He presents himself as the political anti-hero, the one who speaks of concrete things to a concrete target: the middle class. Those were the years, let us remember, in which the Mani Pulite investigation uncovered a Pandora's box made up of secrets and substance, of rich people who became even richer. class watched. Berlusconi inserts himself as the one who can help the revenge of the middle class,and he garners a lot of following.

control of the vehicle . As owner of Fininvest, Berlusconi has control over Mediaset's programming. This allows him to promulgate his political propaganda occupying a lot of space on TV. And not only that: his descent into the field was memorable, with a speech lasting over nine minutes. Sent to all the news, he unleashed an uproar at the time especially in RAI, the competitor network. Such a wide media resonance had not been achieved by any of the Italian political leaders.