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Petty offers of the political fleet: The impact of personal mobile communication technologies on communicative practices of Italian politicians and the transformations of the public sphere

This paper analyses the particular use of personal mobile communication by Italian politicians. Research was carried out in 2004 with semi-structured interviews to professional politicians, journalists and politicians' assistants. The paper intends to demonstrate that personal mobile communication technologies were introduced in a 'Darwinian' phase of political activity, at least in Italy, where every professional politician had to help themselves and survive in a milieu that almost suddenly had become very competitive, without significant support from party's organisation as it were in the past. Personal mobile communication, in this frame of thinking, appears as a 'help yourself' and timesaving technique, especially for second rank politicians who do not have access to large crews of assistants. Personal mobile communication technologies contributed to determine relevant transformations in the public sphere, especially regarding to: a) bargaining and making deals with one's peers and political partners; b) relationships with journalists and the media. At the same time, mobile communications fasten the oral dimension of politics, already pushed by audiovisual media, showing more 'politics' than 'policies'.

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