It is an innovation in the relationship between politics and communication. Mateo Salvini, Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of the Interior since 1 June 2018, seems to have understood more than others, also of Grillo’s supporters who seemed to be at the forefront of the field, the extemporaneous and volatile nature of contemporary political communication, as well as how to relate to it. Salvini’s efforts are all aimed at a constant production of “novelties”, newsworthy information, dictating the agenda to newspapers and online media in particular, with outbursts against the enemy of the day, in an attempt to dominate the political scene with a sort of ubiquity.
Salvini acts in a decidedly linear way. Generally he rants the loudest, the way Trump does in the United States, he waits to see what “effect” this has, and once he has fired up his supporters, once the controversy is unleashed, he stands his ground with a “decisionist” and unrelenting attitude, head-on, further reinforcing his image as a strong man in charge. This is how he prevents a real debate on the issues he raises from taking shape, because yet another rant immediately shifts the attention to another issue, and so on. [...]
This interpretation also stems from an intelligent analysis of the new relationship between economy and media. The success of social networks has also entailed a decrease in profit of the press. The economic policies of today’s press is also driven by the logic of click-baiting, i.e. the constant need of editors to publish articles capable of attracting repeated views. And so, of attracting investments of advertisers, which have become increasingly pivotal in ensuring the economic sustainability of a newspaper. [...]
In other words, it is a communication tactic whose only objective is to outstrip the media’s role as fact checker and address the audience directly and that, however, employs these same media outlets which have become mere carriers of information. The fact that Salvini is behind the exponential growth of his party, not the other way round, is, by the way, indicative of how the new media-driven political economy is a decisive factor in the personalization of politics, in the rise of parties constructed around a single personality and in the redefinition of the party system in a “populist” sense.
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