Vecchie radici, ambiguità e contraddizioni. La sociologia e lo studio della comunicazione politica

In this article the ambiguous relationship that exists between the fi eld of sociology and political communication studies is discussed. The article focuses mainly on the Italian context but there are also references to the situation in other countries. Even if it was born within the realm of sociology, the study of political communication soon became independent to become, mostly in the Anglo-American world, an autonomous disciplinary fi eld that nevertheless still suffers from a lack of full academic legitimization.