How Italian politics goes popular: Evidence from an empirical analysis of gossip magazines and TV shows

It is widely acknowledged that present-day politicians are becoming celebrities. This causes significant effects on the way printed and audiovisual media outlets have started covering them. In fact, political leaders’ private lives are increasingly scanned by gossip magazines and entertainment TV programmes, whose coverage contributes to feed people’s interest over political leaders’ personal sphere. However, as is shown in this case study, in Italy this phenomenon seems to develop in a peculiar way. First, in spite of the fact that both media share the same goal, which is to entertain their public, gossip magazines and TV shows seem to follow very different coverage strategies. Second, and more importantly, only those politicians who belong to the centre-right political area receive a considerable coverage. In the authors’ view, this is due to a greater openness to the use of unconventional political communication forms, as well as a more marked inclination to being affected by political scandals.