Politicians as entertainers - a political performance of the personal

Abstract

Appearances on entertainment television constitute opportunities for politicians, not only to convey political messages, but also to perform personality. Most research has focused on the interview setting as the locus of such performances. But in addition to being interviewed, politicians occasionally turn entertainers themselves, dancing, singing, playing instruments or doing comedy. This article analyses such performances as a specific communicative practice that plays a part in the construction of public persona. The analysis is theory driven and based upon the concepts of personalization of politics, performativity and the carnivalesque.Our conclusion is that such performances have the potential to communicate emotive sociality, accentuate celebrity status, construct ordinariness and work as a pre-emptive inoculation against satire and ridicule. There is, however, also a risk to appear undignified and scrupulously populist involved, since the performances negotiate borders of political decency.

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