Pop online politics: new strategies and leaderships for new audiencies

Abstract

In the midst of entertainment society, that started off at the end of the twentieth century, pop politics developed as a new communication formula used by the political leaders to share their image and their messages to the citizens by means of features from the entertainment environment or celebritization. In a similar way, the traditional mass media act, including formats of political infoentertainment to share the political information to the citizens in a frivolous, superficial or satiric format, aiming to increase their audience. This dominant situation of politainment has been transferred to the Internet environment, where the trend multiplies its effect due to the power of social networks. In that case, political parties, mass media and prosumers, find a new space to gain votes, increase their audience and achieve advantage. The monograph included in index.comunicación introduces several research projects related to politainment, aiming to study its impact upon traditional media and social networks. The new formulas adopted by spectacula­rized political information, the kind of issuers that produce them and the consequences upon those who intake them, are the object of analysis of the investigation works published in this thematic number.