38 | nº 30, pp. 37-53 | doxa.comunicación
January-June of 2020
New job roles of the political leaders in infotainment television programmes
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
1. Introduction
The traditional role of the politician in relation with the mass media has been to act as the informative source about po-litical news, providing the facts that the press requires to supply the news (De Fontcuberta, 1993). However, the truth is that he is a peculiar supplier of information with a strong position in the media hierarchy, becoming part of the so called “stable sources” (Armentia y Caminos, 1998), “proactives” and even “compulsives” (Borrat, 1989) as they take the initiative of communication and they have strategic resources to share with the audience their vision of reality (Borrat, 1989). It´s what Rodrigo Alsina calls “routine sources” which represent a strong reference among a wide range of events, gaining a “semiautomatic access straight to the mass media” (1999: 125).
From this position, the politician tries to be present in the media in order to set a public image and reach the potential vo-ters. The political parties seek to hoard an informative space to achieve “the greater number of news concerning their own topics or accomplish to control the structure of informative sources with actors of their own political organization” (Ca-sero, 2009: 356). Once they achieve that presence, they aim to control the media speech concerning the news hierarchy, the interpretation of the facts or the prevailing arguments: “the political figures aim to make profit of this mediatic set up of the political scene which enables them to take profit of several revenues of the symbolic domain” (Casero, 2009: 357).
Abstract:
Traditionally, the role of the politician in mass media is to be the source of information about political news. The beginning of political infotainment in television (politainment) during the 90´s opened a broader range of roles for political leaders as they began to appear in new formats not always informative, talking about their lives, acting as presenters or even as celebrities. The current research studies those new profiles for policitians in TV. The paper suggests the conceptualization which is completed by an empirical study about the roles of the politicians that appear in the TV program Las Mañanas de Cuatro as a significant program of TV infotainment (Sánchez-García y Campos Zabala, 2017). Among the conclusions, it is relevant to note the appearance of the main characters in this format and the roles they assume such as political chroniclers, political debaters or political celebrities.
Keywords:
Political communication; television; infotainment; politainment; content analysis.
Resumen:
La función tradicional del político en los medios de comunicación ha sido la de fuente informativa sobre la actualidad política. La irrupción del infoentretenimiento político (politainment) en televisión en los años 90 abrió el espectro de roles desempeñados por los líderes que empezaron a aparecer en formatos no estrictamente informativos y en facetas inéditas, hablando sobre su vida personal o como comentaristas de la actualidad. Esta asunción de nuevos cometidos ha evolucionado favorecida por la hibridación de géneros.
La investigación aborda los nuevos perfiles asumidos por los políticos en los programas de politainment que hasta el momento no habían sido catalogados. El artículo aporta una conceptualización de estos nuevos papeles y un estudio empírico sobre los roles de los políticos aparecidos en Las Mañanas de Cuatro como magacín matinal representativo del infoentretenimiento televisivo (Sánchez-García y Campos Zabala, 2017). Entre las conclusiones destacan su presencia significativa y el desempeño de funciones novedosas tales como las de político-cronista, político-contertulio o político-celebrity.
Palabras clave:
Comunicación política, televisión, infoentretenimiento, politainment, análisis de contenido
Received: 15/10/2019 - Accepted: 08/02/2020
Recibido: 15/10/2019 - Aceptado: 08/02/2020
