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universities, institutes or marketing firms. There is no doubt that the analysis of such
data is discussed very seriously in leading circles within the political parties. It does,
however, remain unclear to what extent polling data is actually considered when
election platforms or media strategies are decided: in interviews after the last national
election in 2002,only two of seven Party Secretaries openly admitted the importance of
this polling (Nord & Strömbäck,2003).

As well as opinion analysis, most professionals in the parties are occupied with media
management. They are members of the Party Leader Staff (Press Secretaries) or are
planning media activities, writing press releases or opinion articles and following the
media coverage of political affairs. Media professionals advise Party Leaders and
Government Members about media performances and stage media events.

The leading politicians themselves,however,are still recruited using traditional values such
as ideology, competence, management, compassion, charisma and experience. One of the
basic ideas about political leadership in Sweden has been formed by seeing the benefits of
having a unifying political leader who appeals to the electorate but who, above all, is
capable of handling conflicts within the internal party arena (Strömbäck,2002).

Officially, this idea still exits. In reality, however, media skills are undoubtedly taken into
consideration when new party leaders are elected. As a result of a more volatile
electorate and media-centred communication processes, the ability to turn in a good
media performance becomes more and more essential (Hvitfelt & Nord, 2000). It is thus
impossible to think of a new political leader who does not possess considerable media
skills. All today’s top politicians are not only media talented, but are also professionally
media-trained in order to feel comfortable with different types of media exposure.This
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
professionalisation of politicians is not very controversial within the political parties, as
it is often looked upon as a key to electoral success in a media-centred democracy.
A new but growing group of professionals is occupied with web activities such as
campaigning and mobilising supporters on the net. Sweden is one of the countries in
the world where the Internet is most developed (Norris 2000).Recent surveys show that
about 70% of Swedish households have access to the Internet and use of the net is
growing in all age groups, even if it is still young people who are the most frequent
visitors to web sites (Nord,2002).

But the Internet has not played any significant role in political mobilisation or in
election campaigns.The pattern in Sweden is similar to many other EU countries where
only a small group of politically interested citizens visit the party or the candidate web
sites (Carlson & Djupsund, 2001; Nord, 2002). There are reasons to believe that the
Internet will become more important in political communication in the future, as it has
become in the US, but it still has to prove its capacity to mobilise new groups of citizens
and renew democracy in countries such as Sweden.
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