Political Ideology in the age of Mediatized Political Communication
My current research focuses on the potential of mediatized political communication to provide platforms for the configuration and negotiation of political parties’ ideology. On the one hand, the theory of ideology so far has not, consistently and systematically, taken into account of the shifting nature of political discourse in the context of media-saturated political communication and, on the other, the theories of mediatization have neglected the ideological aspect of political communication for the sake of pragmatism. This mutual exclusion has driven researchers of political communication, by taking for granted the concept of ideology (primarily the one bequeathed from liberal political theory, that is, ideology as a ‘set of ideas’ and ‘belief systems’), to consider the aestheticized and emotionalized discourse of media almost de-ideologized. It has also driven critical theorists of discourse and ideology, by taking for granted the socially normalizing and dissimulative role of media, to consider ideology (as a form of discursive sustainment of domination) an inherent aspect of media discourse.
Beyond these monolithic assumptions, I try to articulate a revisionist conception of ideology as a discursive practice of recontextualization of political symbolisms from the past of political parties (e.g. symbols of social justice, hope, change, revolution, redistribution of wealth, etc.) which is inextricably interrelated with the effective exercise of power in the current, fluid and uncertain, context of political competition (e.g. new emerging extreme and populist parties) and relations of domination (based on conflictual and not always mutually sustainable interests). Drawing on this conceptual framework, I examine the social and historical conditions of possibility of recontextualization in political discourse, (methodologically informed by Critical Discourse Analysis) as the latter emerges (e.g. personalised, simplified, dramatized, spectacularized, etc.) in several media formats of political communication, such as political advertising, taking as paradigmatic case studies the recent Greek (where most ideological symbols came out of historical tensions and traumas) and British (where most ideological symbols came out of social cleavages and classes) general elections of 2015. I am particularly interested in the relation between different genres in political advertising (e.g. talking head, cinema-verite, neutral reporter, testimonial, etc.) and different aesthetic and affective patterns that allow the recontextualization of symbolisms from the past (historicity of genres) and in the different ways via which discourse – as a product of recontextualization – serves the effective exercise of power at the structural (relations f domination) and epiphenomenal (electoral impact) level (pragmatic relevance of symbolisms).
More generally, my research interests are on the context-specific nature of mediatization, that is, mediatization as an institutional practice (including ‘traditional’ mass media and ‘alternative’ new media) of political communication and its various ramifications in the exercise of power by political institutions today.
Supervisors: Dr Nick Anstead and Professor Lilie Chouliaraki
I hold a BA in Media and Communications from the University of Athens and an MSc in Politics and Communication from the London School of Economics and Political Science. I have been awarded full scholarships by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation and the Public Benefit, Alexander S. Onassis, Foundation for my master studies and I am currently a holder of the ESRC doctoral training centre studentship.
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(2015) Ideology in the age of Mediatized Politics: from 'belief systems' to the 're-contextualizing principle of discourse'. Paper presented at the conference marking the 20 years of the Journal of Political Ideologies, Nottingham, UK, November 27-29, 2015
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(2015) Political Advertising in the Crossroad of Political Pragmatism and Political Ideology, Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Special Issue, September 2015. Paper also presented at the ICCMTD in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, May 16-18, 2015
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(2015) Ideology in Contemporary Political Communication. Still here? How and Why. Paper presented at the IAMCR conference in Montreal, Canada, July 12-16, 2015.
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(2013), Mediated Politics and Ideology: Towards a New Synthesis. MSc Dissertation. MEDIA@LSE Electronic Dissertation Series