Bring back the party: personalisation, the media and coalition politics

Abstract

What effect, if any, does a change in type of government have on the degree of media personalization? We argue that, the different incentives that single and multi-party governments provide to individual politicians and parties affect the level of media personalization. Where the parties are more involved (i.e. multi-party coalitions) there will be less media personalization. In contrast, where a single individual can command the party, there will be more media personalization. We test these assumptions with a novel dataset created from over one million newspaper articles covering a continuous 24-year period in the UK. We find that the switch to a coalition government in 2010 indeed changed the dynamics of media personalization. These findings not only provide key insights into the phenomenon of personalization but also enable us to better understand some of the potential consequences of changes in government types for power dynamics and democratic accountability.

Mediated Personalization of Executive European Union Politics: Examining Patterns in the Broadsheet Coverage of the European Commission, 1992–2016

“…Second, given this lack of focus thus far, we also require a theoretical framework for understanding possible personalization trends in EU politics, which this article advances. Few scholars have argued that political factors play a role for varying degrees in mediated personalization (e.g., Boumans et al 2013; Langer and Sagarzazu 2018; Rahat and Sheafer 2007; Šimunjak 2017). Rather, proponents of the personalization thesis contend that mediated personalization can in part be linked to mediatization processes (e.g., Vliegenthart et al 2011; Zeh and Hopmann 2013).…”

Political personalization and personalized politics within and beyond the behavioural arena

“…The personalization of politics has become a major theme in studies of political science in the last decades. 1 It refers to a process in which individual political actors become more prominent at the expense of collective actors and institutions such as political parties, cabinets and parliaments (Karvonen, 2010: 4; Langer and Sagarzazu, 2018: 472; Rahat and Sheafer, 2007: 65). This process may occur in various arenas of political life, from media coverage to institutional designs and the behaviour of voters and politicians.…”

El monstruo bajo la cama: el chavismo como un tema divisorio en América Latina

“…As such this might make our theory less applicable to other non-presidential contexts. However, given the increase in personalization of politics in some parliamentary systems (Holtz-Barcha et al 2014, Langer 2011, Langer Sagarzazu 2018, Karvonen 2010 it might just be the case that our argument might travel -with some caveats-to some highly personalized parliamentary system.…”