Media digitali e comunicazione politica

This chapter first deals with the changes caused by the use of digital media in the political field, briefly tracing the history of political communication and highlighting how some characteristics of the digital have favoured the transformations of political communication: speed, easy dissemination of content, reticularity, and the participatory and community dimension. We then address some of the main theoretical themes and interpretative ideas useful for understanding the complexity of the contemporary context: disintermediation, the personalisation of communication, pop politics and political celebrities, the ‘digital parties’. Digital election campaigns are the framework in which we can observe these phenomena in concrete terms: the hybridisation of digital media, television and campaigning on the ground; the mobilisation of citizens and the organisation of campaign activities through platforms; the return of the personal and community dimension.