Party failure, mass media decline and leader insurgency: democracy under siege?

What is it about?

The relationships between party political activists and the mass media once generated widespread conventions about political behaviour and the collective engagement of a common audience in the public sphere. Shared expectations about appropriate action and democratic scrutiny--while far from perfect-- constrained party volatility. extremism and leadership excess. The fragmentation of mass parties, and the decline of 'legacy' media in the face of new web-based actors, however, have not only disrupted such conventions, but have facilitated leadership insurgencies. Scorning both party establishments, and mainstream media, a new cohort of populists has successfully defied expectations. Relying on the echo chambers of social media and the capacity of new media giants such as Facebook and Google to aggregate emotional and identity factors (rather than rational debate) in mobilising support, extremists who would once have languished on the margins have taken the lead in public life.

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Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

Why is it important?

There have been productive debates about party change and increasing leadership centrality on the one hand, and about the impact of media transformation on opinion formation in the public sphere on the other,=. But the inter-relationship of these spheres has been insufficiently explored. This paper addresses that deficiency. It carefully maps case studies of the transformation of political parties and media institutions to show how transitions in both domains have led to outcomes that confound previous expectations, erode a viable public sphere, and facilitate the rise of insurgent leaders whose capacity for genuine democratic enterprise is limited.

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