This paper offers the first results of an analysis of the election campaign for local elections in 2016 in two major Italian cities, Milan and Turin. The aim of the paper is to study to what extent the electoral communication planned by the parties reaches the media and the communication by the media corresponds to the one proposed by the parties and their staff in terms of electoral agenda, image and type of election campaign.
First, the article will focus on framing the election campaigns considering:
• The role of elections in the electoral cycle
• The specific competitive scenario
• The visibility of the campaign on local and national media
• The agenda of the campaign.
Secondly, the article will study the ability of the parties to communicate through the media their electoral programs, their political vision and their own agenda. For this purpose, the communication run directly by the parties or by their staff will be compared with the communication proposed by media. The role of the web, to define the terms and the agenda of the election campaign, will be evaluated, too. Direct communication of the parties will be studied through an analysis of the contents produced and conveyed by the candidate or the party (such as the program, the website, press releases, election materials, public speeches and posts on social networks), and through interviews with members of the electoral staff. The communication by local and national TV and press about candidates and parties will be analyzed through quantitative content analysis.
Through this analysis, it will be possible to explore the theme of the agenda building and the role of media in the election campaign. The paper aims also at understanding the strategies of the parties, considering aspects such as: the agenda dimensions on which they differ more, the role played in the campaign by the candidate, by the party and the potential local government team, the strategic importance of the local dimension and direct contact with citizens.
