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When Media and Politics Overlap: Inferences from the Italian Case1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2013

Sergio Fabbrini
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Abstract

There is broad agreement that the most important transformation undergone by democratic politics since the second half of the twentieth century has been the diffusion of the means of mass-communication (television in particular). Teledemocracy especially has changed democratic politics in a specific way: the leaders rather than the parties now stand at the centre of the electoral and political process. This article does not aim to go over the relationship between media and politics; that has already been done. Instead, it focuses on how to deal with a situation in which media and politics overlap.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , 2011 , pp. 345 - 364
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011.

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Footnotes

1

The article is a revised version of the paper submitted at the interdisciplinary conference on ‘Conflict of Interest’, Basel Institute on Governance and the Law Faculty of the University of Basel (Switzerland), 7–8 May 2010. I wish to thank Marina Della Giovanna for her research assistance in looking at the Italian legislative debate on the regulation of conflict of interest.

References

2 Here I use ‘media’ as equivalent of television, although I know that the word generally includes many other means of communication. I do this because I will deal with the process of personalization, to which television has contributed much more than the other means of communication.

3 Helms, Ludger, ‘Governing in the Media Age: The Impact of the Mass Media on Executive Leadership in Contemporary Democracies’, Government and Opposition, 43: 1 (2008), pp. 26–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Michael R. Bloomberg is the tenth richest person in the USA, with a net worth of US$18 billion in 2010. He is the founder and owner of 88 per cent of Bloomberg LP, a financial news and information services media company. This company has a radio network that has as its flagship station 1130 WBBR-AM in New York City. He left the position of CEO to pursue a political career as the mayor of New York. He was replaced as CEO by Lex Fenwick. The company is now led by Dan Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg.

5 Jim Rutemberg, ‘With Another 1 Million Dollars Donation, Murdoch Expands His Political Sphere’, New York Times, 2 October 2010, p. A11. It is understandable that Paul Krugman, ‘Fear and Favor’, New York Times, 4 October 2010, p. A23, has denounced Fox News as ‘part of the Republican machinery’.

6 In Italy there are seven national broadcasting networks, three public (RAI), four private (three of which, Mediaset networks, are owned by Berlusconi who, in the mid-2000s, had 84.7 per cent of the shares of Fininvest, the financial company controlling Mediaset, with the remaining shares owned by his sons Piersilvio and Marina, the former being also the vice president of Mediaset). The landscape of the Italian television broadcasters is probably going to change with the diffusion of digital television, but my argument is based on the landscape of both the last 15 years and the near future. For details and references on these data, see Sergio Fabbrini, ‘Conflict of Interest in Italy: The Case of a Media Tycoon Who Became Prime Minister (2001–2006)’, in Christine Trost and Alison L. Gash (eds), Conflict of Interest and Public Life: Cross-National Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 188–212.

7 Giovanni Sartori, Homo videns. Televisione e post-pensiero, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1997, p. 7.

8 F. Christopher Arterton, Teledemocracy: Can Technology Protect Democracy?, Newbury Park, CA, Sage, 1987, p. 14.

9 To reiterate: it is not my aim here to discuss the specific transformation induced by television on political communication. Rather my aim is to focus on the general political implications of a television-based political process. This is why I will use the analytical tools of political science rather than those of political communication.

10 Mair, Peter, ‘Democracies’, in Caramani, Daniele (ed.), Comparative Politics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 108–32Google Scholar.

11 Carl Schmitt, a legal scholar and political philosopher (1888–1985), argued in several works that politics was governed by the friend/foe dichotomy. He taught at several German universities and joined the Nazi Party in 1933 (rising to the rank of president of the Vereinigung der Nationalsozialistischen Juristen or Association of National Socialist Lawyers). His apparent sympathy for Nazism led to his arrest by US troops at the end of the Second World War. Although he was not tried in Nuremberg, he was banned from teaching in post-war Germany.

12 Manin, Bernard, The Principles of Representative Government, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Jonathan Hopkins and Pieter van Houten (eds), Party Politics, special issue on ‘Decentralization and State-Wide Parties’, 15: 2 (2009).

14 Fabbrini, Sergio, The Semi-Sovereign Prince: The Dilemma of an Independent President in a Presidential Government, in Poguntke, Thomas and Webb, Paul (eds), The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, 2nd edn, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 313–35Google Scholar.

15 On the distinction between the First and the Second Italian Republic, see Bull, Martin J. and Newell, James L., ‘Still the Anomalous Democracy? Politics and Institutions in Italy’, Government and Opposition, 44: 1 (2009), pp. 42–67 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 I am not entering here into a discussion as to whether Berlusconi entered politics in order to protect his media empire and thus prevented others (the magistrates in particular) from investigating how he built it, or whether he acted out of a political vision. Of concern is the fact that his leadership was successful in aggregating disoriented voters, especially those who supported the anti-Communist parties in the First Republic.

17 There is a significant amount of political communication literature on this transition. Still useful is Mazzoleni, Gianpietro, ‘Towards a “Videocracy”?: Italian Political Communication at a Turning Point’, European Journal of Communication, 10: 3 (1995), pp. 291–319 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Mauro Calise, Il partito personale, 4th edn, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2007.

19 This was a proportional electoral system, with a majority bonus for the coalition or single party that received most valid votes at the national level without obtaining an absolute majority, until it obtained 340 out of 630 members of the lower chamber. In the Senate the majority bonus is allocated on a regional basis.

20 This was a quasi-majoritarian system because three-quarters of the seats were allocated through simple majority single-member districts and one-quarter of the seats by the proportional votes at the district level.

21 Dahl, Robert A., On Democracy, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1998 Google Scholar.

22 Law 215 on ‘Provisions Concerning the Resolution of Conflicts of Interest’, Official Journal, 18 August 2004.

23 The holders of government office to whom the Law applies are the prime minister, the ministers, the deputy ministers, the undersecretaries of state and the special government commissioners.

24 These declarations should be sent to the Communications Regulatory Authority or AGCOM when the situation of incompatibility concerns the sectors of radio and television communications, multimedia and publishing, including electronic publishing, and when the data on assets have a bearing on such sectors.

25 Draft Bill no. 2668, ‘Provisions Concerning the Prevention of Conflict of Interest and Equal Access to Elective Posts’, submitted at the Chamber of Deputies on 30 July 2009 by Walter Veltroni, Roberto Zaccaria, Massimo Donadi, Bruno Tabacci, Leoluca Orlando et al.

26 The government officers considered by the draft bill are: prime minister, ministers, deputy ministers, undersecretaries of state and special government commissioners.

27 In the US Code, for instance, the principle of ‘equal time’ is in force, meaning that ‘if any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office in the use of such broadcasting station’ (title 47, chapter 5, sub-chapter II, part I, section 315).

28 Amato, Giuliano, Antitrust and the Bounds of Power: The Dilemma of Liberal Democracy in the History of the Market, Oxford, Hart Publishing, 1997 Google Scholar.

29 Christine Trost and Alison L. Gash (eds), Conflict of Interest and Public Life: Cross-National Perspectives, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

30 Giuliano Amato, Il gusto della libertà: l'Italia e l'antitrust, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2000.

31 Sabino Cassese, Lo stato introvabile. Modernità e arretratezza delle istituzioni italiane, Rome, Donzelli, 1998.

32 Sabino Cassese and Bernardo G. Mattarella (eds), Democrazia e cariche pubbliche, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1996.

33 According to a well-known jurist and past president of the Italian commission for checking the functioning of the stockmarket (or CONSOB): see Guido Rossi, Il conflitto epidemico, Milan, Adelphi, 2003.

34 Stefano Passigli, Democrazia e conflitto di interessi. Il caso italiano, Florence, Ponte alle Grazie, 2001.

35 Law 112 on ‘Norms Dealing with the Reorganization of the Radio-Television System etc.’, Official Journal, 3 May 2004.