This master thesis aims to analyze the facts concerning the political communication of Silvio Berlusconi and Andrej Babis and their political and business careers. The works tries to define the basic concepts of political communication and subsequently analyze them in the comparison with those politicians. Among the other things, the effect of the media which could enabled their entrance to the politics and influence the meanings of the public opinion as well as their political history and used communication techniques has been taken into consideration.

This thesis seeks to challenge the dominant modes of conceiving the empirical link between citizens’ negative perceptions of immigrants and electoral support for Western European radical right parties, and in doing so, to offer a deeper understanding of the dynamics of radical right voting behavior based on an analysis of radical right parties’ online activities. Despite radical right parties' great popularity and important presence online, little scholarly attention has been paid to their activities in an online space. Accordingly, most empirical research on radical right voting behavior has been conducted in an offline context, ignoring the potential role the Internet plays in connecting radical right parties and voters. Building on Norris’s demand-supply framework, I consider the largely ignored factor, citizens' online activities, in my quantitative model and, ultimately, develop formal links between citizens’ anti-immigrant attitudes and electoral support for radical right parties conditional on their level of Internet usage. Thereby, I aim to provide an answer to the following research question: Does citizens’ Internet usage moderate the relationship between anti-immigrant attitudes and radical right voting? Using data from the 9th wave of the European Social Survey (ESS), I test whether voters' high level of Internet consumption strengthens the positive relationship between anti-immigrant attitudes and electoral support for radical right parties in eight Western European countries. The results show that my expectations are strongly supported at the cross-national level and partially confirmed at the national level by Belgium, Germany, and Italy. My findings hold promise for future work in designing more elaborate and practical voting models.

No description available.

There has been considerable zeal regarding the democratizing promises of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This belief has resulted in the proliferation of ICT development initiatives in education through public private partnerships. However, there are critical scholars who caution against an overly celebratory perspective of ICTs and expose the ways in which they may be contributing to the exacerbation of existing inequalities. This thesis was inspired by Dan Schiller’s book, Digital Capitalism (1999) with the purpose of examining how digital capitalism is evident today. 'Digital capitalism' refers to the relationship between politics, economics, and technology that explains the shift in the use of the Internet from aiding government agencies to serving private commercial interests. Through a political economy of communication approach, this thesis examines a new model of public schools in which IT companies are partnering with various cities and districts to equip students with the 21st century skills needed to participate in the labor market. These partnerships are designed to benefit marginalized youth that do not have access to ICTs so the study looks at one of these schools encompassing this new innovative model in order to examine the benefits and limitations of these partnerships The purpose of this thesis is to examine the way digital capitalism is playing out in education today in order to shed light on the political and economic forces driving these initiatives while examining who the decision makers are as well as who benefits and why. It has a dual objective of contributing to current digital inequality scholarship and informing policy-making. This thesis ultimately argues that there is a need for more targeted and individualized policies that serve each district’s unique needs, which works to fulfill the policy objective. It challenges the notion that technology is a neutral artifact that is separate from broader political, social, and economic processes.

This study focuses on how the Sweden Democrats and Social Democrats use different rhetorical styles on Twitter during a three month period before the 2018 election. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the Sweden Democrats and the Social Democrats' communication on Twitter differs, and whether this can be explained on the basis of conservative and liberal rhetoric. Thus, the study does not intend to answer whether a party is liberal or conservative, but only which way they communicate. The main question of the study has been formulated as follows: Is there a statistical connection between Sweden Democrats' and Social Democrats' different levels of success on social media and the use of a certain rhetorical style on Twitter? The study’s analysis implementation is based on concepts derived from classical rhetorical concepts in combination with qualitative text analysis. With this method we were able to analyse over 850 tweets, and find which rhetorical concept that was most protrusive in each tweet. The results of the analysis have largely confirmed the theory of how liberal and conservative rhetoric use different rhetorical tools; ethos, pathos and logos. While the Sweden Democrats mainly used pathos arguments that pressed on the emotions of anger and fear, rational and logical logos arguments were most prominent among the Social Democrats. An overall conclusion of the study is that Twitter as a social media can be considered as a political arena where rhetorical tools are used to create public opinions. The different rhetorical approaches have likely resulted in different levels of success for both parties.

Cette recherche interroge les représentations médiatiques du politique, telles qu’elles se donnent à lire sur Internet à travers un objet de prédilection : la vidéo. À la croisée d’enjeux techniques, sémiotiques, discursifs, et de pratiques sociales historicisables, la problématique de notre thèse convoque ainsi le point de vue complexe et interdisciplinaire des SIC pour appréhender les transformations contemporaines de la communication politique audiovisuelle. Attentive au temps long de l’histoire des médias, notre approche des vidéos politiques pendant le quinquennat de Nicolas Sarkozy s’organise autour de trois grands axes analytiques. En premier lieu, nous montrons que les vidéos politiques favorisent l’émergence de nouvelles formes de visibilité et de publicité, qui redéfinissent les modes contemporains de reconnaissance médiatique du politique. Nous examinons ensuite les modalités selon lesquelles les vidéos agissent dans et sur le champ de la communication politique. Enfin, nous montrons que la lisibilité et la rhétoricité des vidéos politiques s’appuient sur les ressorts de la culture audiovisuelle. Au-Delà du règne de l’instantanéisme, ces trois temps de notre démonstration entendent mettre en perspective la place de l’image audiovisuelle dans le champ de la communication politique, / This research looks at the representation of the political sphere in the media as it appears on the Internet, through the lens of a favoured object – the video. At the junction of technical, semiotic and discursive questions, as well as historically traceable social practices, this thesis adopts the complex and interdisciplinary point of view of Communication and Information Sciences to grasp the contemporary transformations of audio-Visual political communication. Our study of political videos during Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-Year mandate takes into consideration the longer history of the media and is organized in three analytical points. First of all, we show that political videos favour the appearance of new forms of visibility and publicity, which redefine the contemporary forms of recognition of the political sphere in the media. We then look at the fashion in which political videos have an impact in and on the field of political communication. Finally, we demonstrate that the readability and rhetoricity of political videos is dependent on audiovicy (audio-Visual literacy). Aside from the reign of instantaneity, the three sections of our argument intend to shed light upon the role of audio-Visual culture in the field of political communication, without losing sight of the significant materiality of the videos or the wanderings of their mundane existence.

Thesis (MTech (Public Relations Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017 / In popular opinion political public relations practitioners have long been regarded as spin doctors. Their lane of actions is mostly viewed as propaganda and they are perceived as spin doctors who manipulate power-relations. The pervasive role of public relations in political campaigns cannot be denied as political actors rely on communication to reach their key stakeholders. While it can be used as an important tool that can mediate in these power relations, the facts remain in the case of this study that the political party campaign communication was rather reactive than strategic. The answer lays in the accurate application of the strategic nature and role of public relations. I believe that there is a strategic public relations role that is evident and has to be played in political party campaign communication. As a matter of fact, public relations strives to ensure an effective and efficient communication on behalf of its organisation. The purpose of this study was to explore the application of public relations principles in political parties’ campaign communication of the Democratic Alliance, in the context of three other political parties in a regional newspaper during the build-up to the 2014 South African general elections. Four distinct political parties were at the centre of this research, namely African National Congress, Democratic Alliance, Economic Freedom Fighters and Agang. Particular attention was given to the elite parties, African National Congress, and Democratic Alliance; the main environment of the study. It is true that political parties ‘communication with stakeholders reflects in essence public relations. Managing communication to promote the organisational agenda is to talk about issues important to both the public and the political party. This suggests that an effective political organisation will act on a two-way operation to build a common political position that influences public attitudes. Hence, a comparative case study was used as the strategy of inquiry. I conducted a content analysis of the political party campaign communication of the Democratic Alliance, covered in the Cape Times newspaper; as well as their election manifesto, to identify the public relations principles and strategies that were used. The daily newspapers were surveyed from January 8 to May 7, 2014. An overall of one hundred and forty-four related newspapers articles were analysed and formed the data for analysis. A close reading and counting of frequencies of varieties of themes in the newspaper revealed that the Democratic Alliance, as well as the African National congress, took a tactical and responsive approach, rather than a strategic and proactive approach, to their political party campaign communication. News coverage indicated that there was extensive counterpunching to other political parties ‘statuses, but very little promotion or management of the issues included in their election manifesto. Nkandla was the most controversial issue covered in the pre-election media coverage; while the proposed merger with AGANG; and the subsequent fall out was damaging to both political parties ‘reputation and relationship with voters. Therefore, more research on this topic needs to be undertaken, as public relations is crucial in translating public opinions to the organisation. In the political scope, this can serve as an attempt to adjust the socio-political environment to suit the political principles, as well as to help the political principles adjust to the environment by creating the right balance to mutual benefit an organisation and its publics that further ensures a real participatory democracy. Further studies should be done to investigate whether, the advocacy of the two-way symmetrical, as a way to central route to persuasion, along with the dialogical approach can impact on more effective decisions making, and ultimately create a more dynamic public sphere that seeks the resolution of socio-political conflicts. This new knowledge will lead to guidelines for public relations practitioners and can provide useful insights for political communication specialists.

Professional campaign is an integral part for each candidacy, including presidential candidates. Presidential campaigns recognise two significant milestones. The first was presidential debate between Nixon and Kennedy in 1960 which is considered to be the beginning of televised politics. The second was Barack Obama's campaign in 2008 with its innovative usage of social media. Emmanuel Macron's campaign from 2017 is aspiring to push the evolution of presidential campaigns further. He surrounded himself with international advisors and based his campaign upon contemporary trends of political communication. Thanks to this he was able to introduce a very effective campaign. This diploma thesis conducts a research of presidential campaigns with the aim to generalise their key features and compare them with Macron's form of campaign. Thanks to this we can explore whether Emmanuel Macron was rather following previous paths or whether he introduced a fundamental progress in the way how presidential campaigns are maintained.

This thesis concerns political communication during the coronavirus pandemic and aims to examine how Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron articulate power and national identity in two speeches. The research questions posed were 1) Which were the communicated discourses in Donald Trump’s and Emmanuel Macron’s speeches to their respective nations? 2) What are the similarities and/or differences between how Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron communicated power and which part does national identity play in their speeches? The theoretical framework used involved Foucault’s theories concerning discourse as well as his notions on power, discipline, knowledge, truth, and governmentality, which were also used as an analytical framework. Moreover, the research questions were answered using a qualitative content analysis on the textual aspects of the speeches and a semiotic analysis on the visual aspects of the speeches. The results concluded that both Trump and Macron frequently used nationalistic discourses in order to unite and coordinate their respective nations, as well as economic and political discourses. Macron also used a militaristic discourse in his speech, while Trump isolated and elevated the United States from the rest of the world. Furthermore, power was manifested through political decisions and appealed to individual responsibility and discipline. Additionally, Macron highlighted state power with rules and punishment. Finally, this study can shed light on populist political communication during the coronavirus pandemic.

This thesis is concerned with political communication and participation with political content on Facebook. Firstly, it aims to synthetise existing theoretical and empirical studies on this topic which was conluded by various political scientists as wel as experts of media and communication studies. It also introduces Facebook algorithm as it is considered to be an important factor influencing level of participation on Facebook. Through the analyses of data collected from Facebook's profiles of selected political actors, the thesis searches for patterns in their communication and brings closer attention to their participating audience.