Política pop online: nuevas estrategias y liderazgos para nuevos públicos

In the midst of entertainment society, that started off at the end of the twentieth century, pop politics developed as a new communication formula used by the political leaders to share their image and their messages to the citi- zens by means of features from the entertainment environment or celebritiza- tion. In a similar way, the traditional mass media act, including formats of politi- cal infoentertainment to share the political information to the citizens in a frivolous, superficial or satiric format, aiming to increase their audience. This dominant situation of politainment has been transferred to the Internet envi- ronment, where the trend multiplies its effect due to the power of social net- works. In that case, political parties, mass media and prosumers, find a new space to gain votes, increase their audience and achieve advantage. The mono- graph included in index.comunicación introduces several research projects re- lated to politainment, aiming to study its impact upon traditional media and social networks. The new formulas adopted by spectacularized political infor- mation, the kind of issuers that produce them and the consequences upon those who intake them, are the object of analysis of the investigation works published in this thematic number.

Moralizing Immigration: Political Framing, Moral Conviction, and Polarization in the United States and Denmark

Morally charged rhetoric is commonplace in political discourse on immigration but scholars have not examined how it affects divisions over the issue among the public. To address this gap, we employ preregistered survey experiments in two countries where anti-immigration rhetoric has been prominent: the United States and Denmark. We demonstrate that exposure to moralized messages leads respondents to place greater moral weight on their existing immigration opinions and become more averse to political leaders and, in the United States, social interaction partners who espouse opposite beliefs. This suggests that political moralization contributes to moral conflict and affective polarization. We find no evidence, however, that moral framing produces attitudinal polarization—that is, more extreme immigration opinions. Our study helps make sense of the heightened intensity of anti-immigrant politics even when attitudes are stable. It also suggests a promising avenue for comparative research on affective polarization by shifting the focus from partisanship to the moralization of existing issue disagreements.

The Process of Deterioration of Liberal Democracy in the Visegrad Group Countries: Institutional Perspective

Contemporary changes of liberal democracy affect different countries of the world. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, known as the Visegrad Group countries (V4), are among them. Although the countries seemed to be on a good way to consolidated democracy, about a decade ago the first symptoms of deterioration of liberal democracy became apparent. In the text, attention is focused on the institutional level, which should resist certain challenges in mature democracies. The institutions in V4 were weak and liable to be subordinated by strong political leaders and populist parties, and not strong enough to fight off illiberal tendencies. The analysis reveals that Poland and Hungary were more prone to compromise liberal democratic achievements, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia less so. This paper answers the questions of the institutional causes behind the deterioration of liberal democracy and the effects it brings.

The language of crisis: spatiotemporal effects of COVID-19 pandemic dynamics on health crisis communications by political leaders

In times of crisis, communication by leaders is essential for mobilizing an effective public response. During the COVID-19 pandemic, compliance with public health guidelines has been critical for the prevention of infections and deaths. We assembled a corpus of over 1500 pandemic-related speeches, containing over 4 million words, delivered by all 50 US state governors during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the semantic, grammatical and linguistic-complexity properties of these speeches, and examined their relationships to COVID-19 case rates over space and time. We found that as COVID-19 cases rose, governors used stricter language to issue guidance, employed greater negation to defend their actions and highlight prevailing uncertainty, and used more extreme descriptive adjectives. As cases surged to their highest levels, governors used shorter words with fewer syllables. Investigating and understanding such characteristic responses to stress is important for improving effective public communication during major health crises.

Demagogues and Demagoguery in Hellenistic Greece

This paper introduces scholars of Greek political thought to the continued existence of the phenomenon of demagoguery, or ‘(mis-)leadership of the people’, in the Hellenistic period. After summarizing Classical elite discourse about demagoguery, I explore three areas in which political leaders continued to run afoul of elite norms in Hellenistic democratic poleis: 1) political persecution of the wealthier members of a political community; 2) ‘pandering to’ the people in a way considered infra dignitatem; and 3) stoking bellicosity among the common people. I show that considerable continuities link the Classical and Hellenistic periods and that demagoguery should be approached as a potential window onto ‘popular culture’ in Greek antiquity.

Serbia

The accession of the Balkan countries to the European Union is a desire and objective of several political leaders and a commitment of the European institutions themselves. This path represents one of the objectives of the Republic of Serbia, and negotiations are currently taking place regarding compliance with the different accession chapters. Serbia's integration entails several challenges, being a decisive instrument to heal the wounds of the Balkan War and an opportunity to rebuild political, social, diplomatic, and economic relations across the region. This chapter sets out to discover these challenges and seeks to analyze the current moment of negotiation, outlining the possible paths for the country's integration into the European Union and the respective impact on subsequent negotiations with other Balkan States. Among the remaining doubts regarding the integration of the Serbian State and the conviction that the path of the European Union inevitably passes through this integration, what challenges will the negotiation face in the coming years?

Voicing the Voiceless

Cinema always represented the society, and any visual representation about ‘not so commonly discussed' topics becomes crucial as they are the image blocks for the future generation. The power of cinema is high among Tamil audience, which is evident from the emergence of two great political leaders who are byproducts of it. It is essential to understand how sexual minorities are represented in a culture-specific society. In India, representation of the third gender was insensitive, and Tamil cinema is no exception. These representations cannot be ignored as ‘just in screen' as screen represents reality. Nevertheless, few fair images are making a significant impact on the audience about transgender. Studying representations about sexual minorities in Tamil cinema is important in today's context, where young minds are exposed to digital platforms. This chapter explains the description of the transgender community in Tamil cinema and analyses its impact on society.

Emotional and Rational Frames Contained in Institutional Speeches

This chapter analyses the institutional speeches of six European leaders (N=19) to identify the emotional and rational frames used when explaining the measures implemented to address the first wave of COVID-19. The results of the analysis show the importance of frames of different categories, and the trust and leadership shown by political leaders, who sought to give speeches that would provoke a feeling of security in citizens based on their capacity to lead. Emotionality, built on values such as protection, gratitude, social sacrifice, and citizen unity, is rounded off with a rational approach based on science and economics. With none of the leaders being populist, their personalities were heterogeneous, from Merkel's empathy to Conte's confidential tone, Johnson's instructive discourse, Macron's commitment to Europe, and Sánchez and Costa's pedagogical vocation.