Between Change and Disillusion: A Multi­Modal Analysis of the New Communicative Strategies of Italian Political Leaders Emerged After the Fall of Berlusconi’s Power.

The paper aims to explore how the political talk of Italian leaders participating to debates broadcast by an important private national broadcasting (La7) changed, after the major changes recently occurred in the Italian political life. On 2013, October the 4th, the Italian Senate, in fact, stripped Silvio Berlusconi – facing serious legal troubles -- out of his seat, leaving him without elective power after more than two decades. At the same time, nearly three millions of Italians voted for a nationwide primary of the Party of the center-left Democrats (PD), largely supporting the rise of Matteo Renzi, the young (39) and charismatic major of Florence. Thanks to this popular support, he quickly gained the control of the Party of center-left Democrats (PD) and, shortly after, he became the new President of the Italian Government. On the other hand, in the period immediately before Berlusconi’s fall the Five Stars Movement (M5S), rising from the voters’ discontent and leaded by Beppe Grillo, a former comedian aged 64, became the third party in the Italian Parliament. In short, after the fall of Berlusconi’s power, the Italian political situation deeply changed – and it keeps changing until nowadays, when the PD of Matteo Renzi has been chosen by more than 40% of the Italians voting for the European elections. My paper is based on the assumption that this deep political change, that is ending up a system of power that lasted for more than two decades, is mirrored by a profound change in the communication of the two main leaders emerging since Berlusconi’s fall, i.e. Matteo Renzi and Beppe Grillo. In fact, the aggressive style of Berlusconi’s party, dominating past television debates, appears now abruptly old fashioned, while new communicative strategies emerge in political talks. To explore these new ways of political talks, we observed in-depth the communicative acts of the two new leaders, paying special attention not only to the verbal contents of their political talk but also to their body communication. Using a mixed methodology, based on a multimodal analysis of communication (Poggi, 2007) as well as on the analysis of facial expressions of emotions (FACS, cfr. Ekman & Friesen, 1978), we detected some significant differences in their communicative acts.