Abstract

After a long period of scarce interest, in the last few years election campaigns have received increasing attention from various disciplines, as they offer a unique perspective on the power of the mass media and on the mediatization of the public sphere. As is documented by a review of the main strands of the literature, various scientifi c fi elds have begun to consider the forms of electoral communication no longer as superstructural factors vis-à-vis political, historical, and economic dynamics, but as forces capable of affecting and altering deep traits of a country's tradition and political culture. It is from this new perspective that the study of political communication and election campaigns turns out to be a promising interpretive framework to understand the changes in parties' and politics' organizational forms, language, participation modes, and history. This endeavor, however, demands a reassessment of both the status of propaganda documents and the state of their sources.