Politiikan viihteellistymistä vai professionalisoitumista? : haastattelututkimus vuoden 2006 presidentinvaaleista

Authors

• Juha Herkamn

Abstract

It has been claimed that politics adopts the logic of commercial media entertainment as politi­cians seek publicity to get voters’ attention. In media research, this critique has been anchored in Jürgen Habermas’ theory on ‘structural transformation’ or the decline of ‘the public sphere’. In political communication research, the changes in the political public sphere have been described as the ‘professionalization of political communication’. This paper considers these different points of view by analysing interviews of candidates, campaign managers and media personnel in the 2006 Finnish presidential elections. The interviews lead one to view contemporary politics in terms of mediatization and the professionalization of politics. However, they also suggest that the core of politics often remains invisible in the public sphere and therefore largely unaffected by the changes under discussion.