Crisis of Public Space and ‘Aesthetization’ of Politics: Towards a New Audio-visual Democracy

Abstract

In the second half of the XIX century several events rushed the downfall of the "illustrated" public space transforming "the public" into consumers.

With the lack of strong ideologies and the founding of reading codes centered in aesthetic aspects, the political institutions have decided, nowadays, to specialize in mass media. Thus, a different way of making politics suddenly rises up where the leading role is played by a new public space: the television. 

 We are, then, before a process of "personalization" and "aesthetification" of politics because, instead of an ideology, we are offered aesthetically attractive characters. In this fashion, politics, in its argumentative terms, is dissolved, and elements like private life and charisma acquire an unusual role in the making of the public images of the political candidates.

Television has installed itself as a fundamental ingredient of the political scenario, rearranging it according to the show business style. Not only the way in which politics is transmitted changes but also the way in which it is practiced. The challenge for the theory of communication rests, then, in investigating the potentialities of this new context in such a way as to build a more democratic society.