Page 117 - The Professionalisation of Political Communication Chaning Media, Changing Europe Volume 3

Political Communication.qxd 5/1/07 15:06 Page 116
Political Communication.qxd 12/7/06 7:30 pm Page 114

114 | THE PROFESSIONALISM OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

middle class, centre-right and undecided voters – that he wants to reach and that he
has come to know from survey research.

In the case of both the D’Alema and Berlusconi governments,a process of centralisation
has taken place, with greater attention being given to planning the relationships with
the mass media in ways that were not previously part of governmental culture in Italy.A
group of individuals, skilled in the field of communication with the external support of
professionals, mainly pollsters and advertisers, has begun to direct, not just the
communication activities of governments and parties, but their political strategies as
well.

CAMPAIGNING
The professionalisation of political communication is more evident during campaigns.
Berlusconi has also been critically important in bringing about these developments. He
has introduced new forms of political communication based on the marketisation,
trivialisation and the ownership of the mass media. A common element in these
attitudes has been a process of professionalisation. Many have spoken of Forza Italia,
Berlusconi’s party, as partito azienda (a company party) pointing out how it was
established thanks to the transfer of Berlusconi’s staff from his companies (essentially
his advertising firm) into the new party structure: these people brought with them their
business oriented and professional skills (Calise,2000; Poli,2001).

The idea of Forza Italia as ‘il partito azienda’ highlights the issue of professionalisation.
Berlusconi established Forza Italia in a very short period at the beginning of 1994,
thanks to the people he transferred from his own business organisation and thanks to
their professional skills. Publitalia, the company in charge of selling Fininvest air-time to
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
advertisers, was the main reservoir for establishing Forza Italia. Some years before,
Publitalia had been the main instrument in Berlusconi’s victory over his television
competitors, Rusconi and Mondadori, so allowing Fininvest to gain the biggest share of
advertising investments (Pilati, 1987). Research on the 1994 elections by Emanuela Poli
identified 60 employees of Publitalia who had moved to Forza Italia (Poli, 2001). Their
skills were not primarily focused on politics but rather on communication.

The best example of this during the 1994 election campaign was that of the pollster,
Gianni Pilo. He was the young general manager of the Fininvest marketing department.
When Berlusconi decided to enter the political arena, he asked Pilo to conduct all the
polling necessary to establish a new party. Pilo established a private company, Diacron,
that carried out all the surveys that allowed Berlusconi to decide if he was the right
person (in the perception of the voters) to run the country, what issues he had to put in
front of the voters, and then conducted all the surveys that allowed Berlusconi to
determine his political strategy. According to many observers, Forza Italia and
Berlusconi himself have been the product of a marketing approach that has made it
possible to identify the most appropriate leader (Berlusconi himself), his symbolic
116