Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the concept of mediatization of politics in the Chilean system, arguing that the emergence of personalised leaderships goes hand in hand with the ability of political actors to build their popularity around media and communication strategies.

Paper long abstract:

The construction of political leaderships that grow in the media and outside party structures is a recurring pattern in Chile, which challenges the ability political parties have to develop leaderships of national projection. It is possible to argue that the last two Chilean presidents were imposed by means of surveys to their own political parties, a pattern repeated in the current presidential race.

Mediatization of politics, as a theoretical construct, offers some insight for understanding the development of this phenomenon, which acquires unique characteristics in each country of the region, and avoids generalizations. In Chile, there are signs that indicate that media praxis has been adopted by political actors, changing not only the way in which political activity is represented in public communication spaces but how practices of political actors are organized.

Academic analysis about the place of the media in the Chilean process of democratisation has generally been centered in the characteristics of media market structures. These studies allow us to understand the limited role the media have played in terms of making political and economic power accountable. However, it will be argued that the mediatization of politics has to be studied in terms of how politics itself has been modified as a result of continuous interactions with a predominantly market-driven media system. This phenomenon that can be conceptualised as media effects on political actors has deep implications in the style of leadership that dominate the Chilean political scene.