Page 157 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

146 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

hundred to a thousand copies. First of all there’s no certainty the
ordinary readers read the front pages of the papers and in any case
their influence is minimal. The entire system is organized around
the relationship between political journalists and the group of
privileged readers.
(Forcella 1959:451)
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Thirty years later the number of readers has grown but the attitude,
morals and the approach to understanding the work and functions of
journalism have not changed. As a rule, the main interlocutors of the
political press are still the same actors in the political system: they are
the source and target of journalism (Blumler and Gurevitch 1986) and
they are also the privileged recipients, and this characterizes the
relationship between the media and politics in Italy. This is confirmed
not only by the low number of copies of newspapers sold every day, but
also by the results of the research already cited on the television
campaign for the 1987 elections. During appearances by politicians from
all the parties, at which a journalist was almost always present as an
interviewer, moderator, etc., discursive strategies of attack and defence
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were more common than ‘sales’ strategies. While the latter are usually
addressed to the electorate to whom programmes and ideas are proposed
for voting and acceptance, the former are addressed primarily to the
other political interlocutors one is confuting or defending oneself from.
In the latter case, the debate, while carried out before a vast television
audience, remains primarily within the dynamics, questions and
practices of the party system. This in effect confirms that the ‘palace’
members are the sources, subjects and recipients of the political
communication as well as the journalists’ intervention.
But there is a further reason why the so-called ‘sales’ strategies are
little used: if we refer to another of the theories proposed by Gurevitch
and Blumler, it is not difficult to find in Italy the figure of the political
gladiator who uses the media essentially for playing his cards before his
adversaries, allies and potential friends. In fact Gurevitch and Blumler
wrote:
when the political parties control the means of communication,
the role of the gladiator will be adopted more often by the
political spokesman, and the role of editorial guide will be
adopted by the media personnel; this will exert pressure on the
public to adopt the role of party factionists.
(Gurevitch and Blumler 1980:244)