Personalization of political communication, role of social media

Abstract

Dissemination of social media platforms has brought a fundamental change in traditional public communication, which previously was a managing process managed exclusively by actors such as journalists, politicians and various interest groups. Politicians or individuals engaged in the press offices of different institutions are now increasingly choosing direct communication with the public through social media platforms. This has resulted in de-intermediation of public relations, mainly political actors, and beyond. Some of the pioneers of social media advocate that these changes are leading to a de-mediatized communication, have influenced positively on the quality of democracy by promoting citizen participation in public debate. This study is focused on the role that social media has in the transformation of political actors communication with the public, and the impact that this model can have of communication in shaping the public sphere. During the study there are analysed various authors approaches and real cases from the Albanian context of political communication. To conduct the study there will be used mainly qualitative research methods.