How are political campaigns shaped by media?
Answer Personally I think the media represent political campaigns focusing primarily on effective images and phrases for effect. We can see this at this time. There are now three important elections. The Russian (presidential – March 2008), the Italian (political-April 2008) and the American (presidential – November 2008). Russia, Italy and United States are very different Countries. Nevertheless the way in which the media “do electoral campaign” is the same: to focus on keywords affecting minds and hearts of voters. Above all the emotional aspect is that on which they focus more, because what is directly affecting simple people. The media perform political campaigns so extremely populist and often they are relying on nationalist rhetoric. The contents of the political programmes are completely neglected or totally absent. In the best case, they consist of two or three pages with contents often so generic that any political coalition can support them. I am reading in these days differe
