Americanisation of Political Communication Practices.docVIP

Americanisation of Political Communication Practices 　　[a] Department of Communication and Design, Beykent University, Istanbul, Turkey. 　　*Corresponding author. 　　Received 13 February 2012; accepted 21 May 2012 　　Abstract 　　Globalisation, referring to an interconnectedness and interdependence?across the world, creates a challenge for national states, localities and individuals. In the past, people used to define themselves with strong ties with political parties, trade unions, and churches. However, modernisation process decreased the importance of these institutions, and individualistic values became more important. As a result of that process, ties between people and political parties are weakened. Meanwhile, media played a very important role, and the mass media?gained a centrality in the world. Moreover, technological developments changed the interaction between people, and “visibility” became important for politicians: The more visible politicans are on television, the more dominant they are. Therefore, these changes forced political parties to change their political discourse and new communication techniques emerged with catch-all parties. The U.S. was the first country, which used new techniques in political communication. Because of dissemination of information, these new techniques are globalised. 　　Key words: Modernisation; Americanisation; Centrality of Media; Political Communication 　　G?khan U?ur (2012). Americanisation of Political Communication Practices. Canadian Social Science, 8(3), -0. Available from URL: /index.php/css/article/view/j.css.1923669720120803.2888 　　DOI: /10.3968/j.css.1923669720120803.2888. 　　INTRODUCTION 　　Today as mass media gain more and more importance, political communication methods of parties get similar all over the world and that similarity increases day by day. Therefore, it is possible to talk about global homogenisation of media systems across the world which causes countries to get closer in their political communic