COMUNICAZIONE POLITICA
Academic Year 2024/2025 - Teacher: ROSSANA SAMPUGNAROExpected Learning Outcomes
A) Knowledge and understanding to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the dynamics and the evolution of political communication.
B) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding to solve problems in new or unfamiliar areas within broader (or interdisciplinary) contexts related to political communication.
C) Autonomy of judgement, integrating knowledge and dealing with complexity, and making judgements even on the basis of limited or incomplete information, including reflection on the social and ethical responsibilities attached to the application of their knowledge and judgements.
D) Communication skills, disclosing their conclusions and knowledge, and the rationale behind them, to specialist and non-specialist interlocutors.
E) Learning skills to study in a self-managed or autonomous way.
Course Structure
Required Prerequisites
Detailed Course Content
The objective of this course is to examine the field of political communication, with a particular focus on the key actors and the space of interaction within this field. The phenomena under examination can be traced back to a more general analysis of the mechanisms underlying the social, political and economic changes of contemporary societies. This analysis is conducted from an integrated knowledge perspective, which entails the use of different conceptual and methodological tools and a focus on the historical evolution of the discipline and its theoretical-methodological peculiarities. The course presents the principal theoretical and research perspectives in the discipline, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between communication, on the one hand, and political participation, electoral behaviour and public opinion, on the other. In the context of post-representational politics, the relationship between democracy, citizenship and political communication is of central importance. This encompasses the new forms of triangulation between media, politics and citizens, disintermediation and the new meanings of participation. A specific in-depth study is devoted to the characteristics and strategies of new election campaigns in the context of the hybridisation of genres and media.
Textbook Information
Handbook:
(1) Chiapponi F., Comunicazione Politica. Un approccio teorico, Firenze, Mondadori Università, 2020, isbn: 9788861847262, (Cap. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10)
in alternative:
(6) S. Bentivegna, D. Campus, A.Valeriani, La comunicazione politica contemporanea, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2024, isbn: 9788815387288
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(2) Bennett W. L., Segerberg A. & Knüpfer C. B., "The democratic interface: technology, political organization, and diverging patterns of electoral representation". Information, Communication & Society, 2017, 21(11), 1655–1680. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1348533
and a text of your choice from the following:
(3) Cepernich C., Le campagne elettorali al tempo della networked politics, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2017, isbn: 9788858129159
(4) Mazzoleni G. e Bracciale R., La politica pop online. I meme e le sfide della comunicazione politica, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2019, isbn: 9788815285263
Course Planning
| Subjects | Text References | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is political communication | (1) ch. 1 |
| 2 | Quality of democracy and the development of communication | (1) ch. 3 |
| 3 | The communication of leaders in representative democracies | (1) ch. 4 |
| 4 | Communicating the crisis | (1) ch. 4 |
| 5 | Interest advocacy and political communication | (1) ch. 5 |
| 6 | Political participation and the digital platform | (1) ch. 6; (2) |
| 7 | The parties and the digital platform | (2) |
| 8 | Transnational movements and political communication | (1) ch. 7 |
| 9 | The transformation of election campaigns | (3) or (4) |
Learning Assessment
Learning Assessment Procedures
For the assessment of the examination, consideration will be given to the candidate's mastery of the content and skills acquired, linguistic accuracy and lexical property, as well as the argumentative ability demonstrated by the candidate.
The examination will be conducted orally.
Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises
EXAMPLES OF FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AND/OR EXERCISES
- Definition of political communication
- Illustrate a research paradigm and establish its main features
- Distinguish between disintermediation and reintermediation
- Describe the stages of campaign evolution
- During the examination, the student will be asked to define the main concepts of the discipline, explain them by means of concrete examples and compare phenomena.