31671 - Leadership and Political Communication

Academic Year 2022/2023

  • Docente: Sofia Ventura
  • Credits: 8
  • SSD: SPS/04
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Mass media and politics (cod. 8051)

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to analyse the different aspects of political leadership in contemporary democracies. At the end of the course students are supposed to be able to manage political science and political communication concepts and models in order to analyse the different case studies of government and party leaders in western democracies.

Course contents

 

The leadership

- Leadership and power

- The leader: diagnosis, solutions, mobilisation

- The leader’s skills: the leader and his team

- The leader and the followers: the charismatic leadership

- The leader and the followers: soft power and transformative leadership

- The leader: personality and style

The personalisation of politics

- The concept

- The causes of personalisation

Celebrity politics

- Electronic media and the public

- Celebrity politicians

Storytelling

- The power of stories

- The collective action problem

- The political marketing

- Empirical examples

Storytelling and Populism

- The concept of populism

- The narrative of populist leaders

- Empirical examples

Crisis communication: between coronavirus and war

- Crisis management e meaning-making

- Empirical examples

 

Readings/Bibliography

Mandatory readings:

- J. S. Nye, The Powers to Lead, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008.

- S. Ventura, I leader e le loro storie, Narrazione, comunicazione politica e crisi della democrazia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2019.

- T. Aalberg, F. Esser, C. Reinemann, J. Stromback, C. De Vreese (eds) Populist Political Communication in Europe, Routledge, 2017, chapters: 1, 2, 9, 13, 14, 17, 23, 24.

- C. Ansell, A. Boin, e P. 't Hart, Political Leadership in Times of Crisis, The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership, Oxford University Press, 2014.


Other mandatory readings for those not attending the course:

- D. Campus, Lo stile del leader, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2016, chapters 2,3,e 4.

- D. Campus, Celebrity Leadership. Quando i leader politici fanno le star, in «Comunicazione Politica», 2/2020.

 


 


Teaching methods

Teaching  lessons and seminars.

Assessment methods

 
  Written exams.

Teaching tools

Power point, illustration of audiovisual materials.

Office hours

See the website of Sofia Ventura