Political communication in the age of disintermediation

Abstract

Today, developing successful communication strategies is dependent on disintermediation. During the 20th century, communication activities revolved around paying to ensure presence (traditional advertising and current paid media) or appearing in the media as news (public relations that took control over politics in the 1950’s in the United States). Today, these two lines are simply elements of a range of communication strategies mediated by algorithms. In order to be successful, audiences must be reached; and, in order to do so successfully, they must be properly understood. Technology helps us to do just this, and yet it poses new challenges. This paper discusses them, in the framework of political communication.