Abstract

The essay tries to identify processes and trends characterizing the relationship between politics and television over the last thirty years. Innovations that become clear and legible with the beginning of the so-called «Berlusconi era», but whose starting point is to be set at the end of the Eighties, and that, consequently, not only survive, but find their final development, or their final twist, today. The process of popularization of politics, linked to that of personalization of leadership, is analysed in the media strategies of the three main leaders of contemporary Italian politics: Beppe Grillo, Matteo Renzi and Matteo Salvini. The two Matteos, in particular, give an opportunity to reflect on the same category of «popularization», and to try to distinguish strategies that can be defined as «pop» from those that may be better understood when defined as «trash».