Media studies, Vol. 4 No. 8, 2013.
Original scientific paper
New Media and the Crowdsourcing of Politics: The Strange Case of Dr. Berlusconi and Mr. Grillo
Inoslav Bešker
orcid.org/0000-0001-9800-8729
; Alma mater studiorum Università di Bologna, Italy
Abstract
The main Italian populist politicians, Silvio Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo, ensured their successes in parliamentary elections in 2013 combining a skilful use of electronic media with classical mass rallies,
avoiding debates with competitors, and shunning journalists. The message of both Grillo and Berlusconi is characterized by populism, anti-party attitudes, demonization of opponents and an approach to the public and to politics focused on the leader. Although Grillo and Casaleggio emphasize their MoVement’s use of Internet as a direct democracy, claiming that the MoVements politics is created in equal measure by all the members, in a kind of a crowdsourcing, Grillo’s messages remain mostly unidirectional directives, more appropriate to a dictatorial than to a democratic discourse.
Keywords
new media; politics; crowdsourcing; populism; Italy; Grillo; Berlusconi
Hrčak ID:
118039
URI
Publication date:
17.12.2013.
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