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PP 041
Between Sports Mediatization and Pop-Politics: The Journalistic Coverage of Silvio Berlusconi in "La Gazzetta dello Sport"
M. Spalletta
1
, L. Ugolini
2
1
Link Campus University, Department of Research, Roma, Italy
2
Sapienza University of Rome, CORIS, Rome, Italy
The relationship between sport and politics is one of the main features of the phenomenon of "pop politics", which in Italy is closely linked to the figure
of Silvio Berlusconi. In fact, the so-called "Cavaliere" is, or has been, one of the most important media tycoons (as founder and owner of three private TV
channels and several news media and publishing houses), one of the most prominent politicians (as centre-right coalition leader and Prime Minister for
around nine years all told), and owner of one of the most winning football clubs (A.C. Milan): the simultaneous existence of these three roles has character‑
ised the Italian society to such an extent that the period going from his "entering to field" in January 1994 to the end of his parliamentary career in Novem‑
ber 2013 has been named as the "Berlusconian Ventennio" (period of twenty years), which recalls the other Italian well-known Ventennio, the fascist era.
Between other features, the "Berlusconian era" has changed the Italian scenario concerning the relationship between journalism and politics and the polit‑
ical communication itself: the presence of a figure such as Berlusconi has accelerated and connoted the mediatisation and popularisation processes within
Italian politics; in particular, those processes related to the Cavaliere have been characterised by a peculiar role played by sport. Through a qualitative media
content analysis research conducted on the articles concerning Berlusconi published in the main Italian daily sports newspaper ("La Gazzetta dello Sport"),
the paper analyses how the relationship between politics and sport took shape in the "Berlusconian Ventennio". The research shows that sport (and A.C.
Milan in particular) has been, on the one hand, a strategic news value to obtain a news coverage of Berlusconi as a politician on a daily sports newspaper;
on the other hand, it represented a key topic of Berlusconi’s political communication, and as well a sort of showcase, as it allowed him to propose an image
of himself as winning, durable and attractive. Within this model, however, the role of Berlusconi himself emerges as symbolic, effective and essential, to
the point that the model can only be replicated with the succession of "another Berlusconi".
PP 042
Identity Politics in a Mediatized Religious Environment on Facebook: Yes to Wearing the Cross Whenever and Wherever I Choose
M. Abdel-Fadil
1
1
University of Oslo, Department of Media and Communication, Oslo, Norway
In what ways do social media audience contribute to the mediatization of conflicts about religion? This paper seeks to examine the multiple ways in which
users of social media play in to the constructions of public religious discourse and identity politics in connection with mediatized conflicts about religion.
The goal is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between the mediatization of religion and audience participation, through
researching a particular European online context. Drawing on rich empirical material from the Norwegian Facebook page: Yes to wearing the cross when‑
ever and wherever I choose, this paper aims to examine and provide new insights on the ways in which media audiences may ‘add a series of dynamics
to conflicts, namely, amplification, framing and performative agency, and co-structuring’. Yes to wearing the cross whenever and wherever I choose was
established in response to an impassioned debate on the visibility of religion on NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation), sparked by a piece of jewellery
worn by a news anchor onTV.The debate about the news anchor’s cross-pendant raced across multiple media platforms.The Norwegian Public Broadcasting
Council swiftly ruled that wearing the cross in the newsroomwas a breech of policy, much to the dissatisfaction of the majority of those actively debating on
the Facebook page in question. While, Yes to wearing the cross whenever and wherever I choose initially was created to protest the prohibition of the cross
for NRK-news anchors, many of the discussions and audience interactions transpired into heated religio-political debates with strong elements of an‑
ti-Muslim, xenophobic, and anti-atheist sentiments. Hence, this Facebook page can be viewed as a mediatized religious environment where identity politics
and religious disputes are played out openly. The Facebook page is thus a suitable rich empirical site and context from which to examine: • discourses on
religious symbols and visibility of religion in the media and the public sphere • constructions and contestations of religious realities and religiously grounded
positions • formations, negotiations, and reconfigurations of religious and non-religious identities (both individual and national) • the role of participatory
audiences in framing and amplifying mediatized conflicts about religion This study is a subproject of the Scandinavian study Engaging with Conflicts in
Mediatized Religious Environments (CoMRel). In sum, this paper aims to provide a grounded analysis of the ways in which social media audiences shape
mediatized religious conflicts and engage in identity politics.
PP 043
Jurisprudence in the Media Society. An Analysis of References to the Media in the Swiss Federal Criminal Court’s Decisions
F. Oehmer
1
1
University of Fribourg, Departmen of Communication & Media Research, Fribourg, Switzerland
In modern democracies, the political system is based on the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branch. While the extant
literature in communication science has taught us a great deal about the impact of the increasing importance of the media on the legislative (i.a. Kep‑
plinger 2002, Vowe/Dohle 2009, Elmelund-Præstekær et al. 2011) and the executive branch (i.a. Strömbäck 2008) and on parties in particular (Donges
2008; Donges/Jarren 2014), there is little empirical knowledge about the mediatization of the legal sector (with a few exceptions Kepplinger / Zerback
2009, Kottkamp 2013; Bogoch/Peleg: 2014). The aim of this proposed paper is to analyse mediatization processes within the judicial branch by identifying
explicit references towards the media and/or journalists made in Swiss Federal Criminal Court’s decisions that are accessible via the Court’s database since
2004. Every statement that refers to a) the media in general (press,TV, radio, social media), b) to certain media formats (names of newspapers,TV channels,
radio stations, online news websites…), d) to journalists or d) to the general public/public opinion in order to 1) justify the Court’s own rulings or to 2)
summarize the pleadings of the advocates has been coded and analysed as media reference. It is argued that these media references in Court’s decisions
serve as an indicator for mediatization processes, since they explicitly show the relevance of the media and media coverage for the judicial reasoning.
Furthermore, the archived decisions allow for a longitudinal non-reactive analysis. References: Bogoch, B. & A. Peleg (2014): Law in the age of media logic.