(TV) Media Causing Division: The Case of Georgia

Abstract

          This paper focuses on the electoral polarization in post-Soviet democracies, in which mass media are assigned to have great impact on political campaigns.   The preparation for the elections during the election campaign was topical in every era. In the 19^th century, new methods for conducting election campaigns developed in the United States. The Americanization of election campaign is distinguished with the characteristics such as special role of media in the pre-election period, political personalization, brittle ideological grounds and particular specialization of political campaign. The process of exerting influence by mass media on election campaign, which is described as political mediatization, takes the center stage of this paper. Mediatization in this context means the implementation of mass media logic within election campaigns. The election campaigns were in need of media professionals hired to navigate the campaign’s strategy. With the emergence of campaign advisors, emerged the term ,,Mediatization.” For the beginning of 1990s in Georgia, after 70 years of soviet governance, the first steps on the way of statehood had been made. In the post-Soviet Georgia, multiparty and competitive elections gave opportunity to the political parties to use foreign experience in the term of political campaign. The aim of the work is to examine the tendencies of Mediatization of election campaign in Georgia from 2012 to 2021. In accordance with the research hypothesis, weak institutionalization of party system creates a favorable ground for a Mediatization of political campaign.  In the research process characteristics of political mediatization existing in post-Soviet Georgia had been analyzed.
          Qualitative research methods have been utilized during the study, namely: a) Expert interviews with journalists and political consultants; b) In-depth interviews with representatives of political parties; c) In-depth interviews with selected electorate. Qualitative research methods were chosen for the work because the aim is to understand the tendencies of Mediatization of election campaign in Georgia from the point of view of respondents. Qualitative methods are more open and look more descriptions, by gathering responses like these it is possible to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.