"Party Leaders and the Media" - call for papers

UK Political Studies Association (PSA) Annual Conference, 1 - 3 April 2008

The Media and Politics Specialist Group and the Italian Politics Specialist Group of the PSA are seeking to organise panels on "Party leaders and the Media":

The ability of political parties to select charismatic, media-savvy leaders is often crucial to electoral success. Scholars have debated the increasing tabloidisation of media outlets, which in turn means that attention-seeking, spectacular initiatives and the use of unorthodox language all enjoy prominence in the media and manage to capture public attention. The process is exacerbated by (and possibly contributes to) the simultaneous, and increasing, disaffection towards traditional party politics shown by large sections of the electorate.

These panels discuss how the media affects key-words, strategies of communication and language employed by political leaders, i.e. what has the media done to leadership. While we are interested in the discussion of single country case-studies, comparative papers will be particularly welcome.

Proposals, in the region of 200 words, should be sent, by 21 September, to Daniele Albertazzi, d.albertazzi@bham.ac.uk.