Transformation of political communication: media image of Silvio Berlusconi

Section: Foreign Journalism

This article tries to place the “phenomenon” of Silvio Berlusconi in context of old and new features of Italian politics and mass media. Berlusconi introduced a completely new way of behavior and communication in the field of politics. On the one side, he has been able to popularize Italian political culture introducing some innovations within it. At the same time he has applied to political struggle all those skills, which were derived from his business background: Berlusconi successfully developed the professionalization of political communication and adopted marketing approaches to the politics. While there is no doubt in his political and communicator genius, his case reveals serious problems to a truly democratic life, when a stable tendency towards personalization of politics rules out the possibility of serious political debate.