Online Implications in Political Communication

Political information is created and transmitted as a result of the interaction between interest groups, reaching the wider audience through various means of communication. As Manuel Castells argues, the Internet emphasized the audience’s ability to focus on a public issue; it endowed communication with originality by means of its manifold nature. A wide range of technological developments and, especially, the Internet (among others) have also transformed the landscape of modern political campaigns. The Internet, a word that didn’t even exist a few decades ago, has caught the full attention of mass-media and the public sphere, fructifying its role in politics. It caught the youth’s attention and, obviously, it rapidly managed to reach the consumers who were directly concerned, much faster than the rest of mass-media and with an impact that is far from insignificant. Over the last years, political communication was based on the new technologies and the implications of the online environment. Our paper will deal with some of the strategies and instruments the Internet provides political communicators with, instruments that allow them to identify with, monitor and communicate with the electors.