Page 120 - The Professionalisation of Political Communication Chaning Media, Changing Europe Volume 3

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POLITICAL PROFESSIONALISM IN ITALY | 117

BEYOND BERLUSCONI: THE DIFFUSION OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONALISM
IN ITALY
In some ways, Berlusconi’s opponents followed his path, as did the candidates of his
own party. Even for his adversaries, the new-born electoral market, within which
undecided voters were numerous, created the need to use new strategies and new
means that had not been necessary during the Prima republica which was characterised
by a very highly stabilised vote and by strong links between voters and parties.

First of all, his opponents, essentially the DS party and the coalition built around it,
l’Ulivo (the Olive tree), made considerable use of survey research. But they also felt the
need for a new way to communicate with the voters and to organise the general
consensus. In the 2001 election, the general manager of the Ulivo campaign involved
one of the major US consultants, Stanley Greenberg, who used to come to Italy
frequently because of family connections. It is not clear what Greenberg contributed;
he was in charge of some surveys and this permitted him to give some general advice
on strategy. The Ulivo, too, centralised its campaign with the support of other pollsters
(university professors and professionals from survey firms) in addition to Greenberg.
This group also met once a week to examine the data from surveys, the press coverage
and the general direction of the campaign.Nevertheless,because of the heterogeneous
character of the Ulivo coalition, the centralisation of the campaign did not achieve the
same results as in Berlusconi’s case (Gentiloni,2001).

Beyond what has been done at the central level of the Berlusconi party and the
opposition coalition, political communication professionalisation has meant that single
candidates are forced to find support for their personal campaign because of the new
electoral system that focused the voter’s choice on single candidates, and the weak
condition of the party apparatus that was no longer able to support the large number
of local campaigns.

Data, drawn from personal interviews with some of the main ‘political consultants’ who
supported the parties and the candidates during the 2001 campaign,and from a survey
5
conducted with all the elected members of the Italian Parliament , shows the existence
a low level of political professionalism: 45% of the elected members of Parliament were
not supported at all by paid professionals; 46.0% had a very low percentage of support
in their campaign activity from paid professionals (less than 25% of their campaign was
run with the help of external professionals); 6.2% had more significant support from
paid professionals (more than 30% of their campaign was run thanks to the support of
external professionals) while only 2.1% of the elected members of Parliament stated Political Professionalism in Italy
that more than 30% of their campaign was run with help from external professionals
(Chart 1). Paid professionals gave candidates very poor support in terms of specialised
skills, a kind of support that cannot be defined as ‘political’or ‘strategic’.There is nothing
of a strategic quality in taking photographs or giving advice on how to print brochures,
as these professionals did. This kind of support does not imply any particular skills in 119