Riflessioni e riflessi sulla comunicazione politica: la formazione del Governo dopo le elezioni politiche del 2018

Abstract

The first Conte Government took office on the 1st of June, 2018, almost ninety days after the national elections held on the 4th of March: it is the longest period in the history of the Italian Republic between the date of the elections and the birth of a government. What happened to the political communication during this long period? By using content and statistical text analysis, three channels of political communication were analysed: online newspapers, social media and official speeches at the end of the consultations. The intent of the article is to examine some typical dynamics of the new ecosystem of political communication that are strictly linked, in other words: the increasing of disintermediation; the hybridization of institutional, media and social communication spheres; the supposed end of the mediation role of information professionals. This aim was raised also by placing a specific focus on the differences in communication style of the main leaders involved in the formation of the first Conte Government: Luigi Di Maio for the Five Stars Movement and Matteo Salvini for the Lega. By focusing on the entire period of the consultations and on the analysis of the contents conveyed through the various channels, it was possible to understand in depth the peculiarities of the communication strategies adopted, how they relate to each other and to targets and events. The analysis of the data highlighted the low heterogeneity of the peculiar lexicons of the various communication channels and the link between the differences in communication styles, as well as the means by which information and the temporal dimension are conveyed; in addition, it fosters to identify the differences between the main leaders Di Maio and Salvini on these aspects.