New media – the reforming factor of political communication [Articol]

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a structural and semantic analysis of the concept of new political communication which, according to the theory of the English researcher Brian McNair, includes: political rhetorics, the actions of symbolic communication and some actions with political connotation. The three categories of political communication, defined on the basis of the criterion: the intention of emitter to the political environment, were studied and described in order to argue the transformation of the process of transmission-reception of political messages from a unidirectional dialogue into a bidirectional one. This theoretical approach has served to justify the role of the online component of the election campaign as the main innovative element of political marketing model of the XXIst century. The conclusion was that communication between candidates and voters is totally different from that of the political marketing model of the XXth century. Known in scientific literature as bottom-up communication, it allows voters to be actively involved in election campaigns thanks to the input possibilities and feedback offered by new media: e-mail, SMS, forums, websites, etc.