Weblogs: facilitators of a personalized political style?

The political democratic landscape has changed dramatically from the beginning of this century. More and more voters are choosing to vote for people instead of political parties. Over time voters have changed from being loyal supporters of a particular worldview to voters who don’t stick to any certain ideology anymore. Tradition, group spirit and heritage are becoming less influential, and the effect of this has been that loyalties have changed. The interaction between politicians and voters has become much more individualized, spokespersons and appealing personalities rule the modern political system. Swanson and Mancini (1996) argue that ‘personalization of politics is the result of the dwindling (ideological) bond between voters and political parties’. As a result politics is being conducted by individual politicians, whose image and personal traits are becoming very important. Numerous adherents of this theory have been proven right through the classical example of the recently murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. His ‘dandyesque’ appearance dominated the 2001 Dutch elections. According to Dick Pels (2003: 251) ‘Fortuyn became a media star who turned his style into a source of power.’ The political appearance of Fortuyn leads Kees Brandst and Philip van Praag (2005: 3) to argue that ‘the Dutch political culture of moderate consensus had come to an end.’ The way politics is conducted has changed. The demure and businesslike political style that dominated the Dutch political landscape, has been partly replaced by an expressive and emotional style. Television and the rise of the Internet have created a ‘virtual public sphere.’ Nowadays, strong personalities and charismatic leaders are trying to reconnect with their constituency, and one concern is that politicians are privileging style and appearance and media impact over substance. In this thesis several Dutch party leaders’ political styles were analyzed by taking a closer look at their personal weblog entries. The focus centered on one particular aspect of political style: personalization. It was concluded that weblogs can be used as a platform on which at least three different political aspects can be facilitated that bring political style to the attention of the readers, these aspects are ‘ideologies,’ ‘elections’ and ‘rhetoric’s.’ With Ankersmits’ notion that politicians must posses the essentially aesthetic talent of being able to represent political reality in new and original ways in mind, it was concluded that weblogs offer politicians a platform on which they can do this. Because weblogs offer politicians the opportunity to address ‘everyone as someone’ new forms of representation can come into being. Street (2004) argues that new styles of political communication are logical extensions of the changing political landscape, and weblogs are platforms that can facilitate these new personalized styles.