Faithful confidants or fickle coat-changers? Audience's perceptions of celebrities in political campaigns before the first direct presidential election in the Czech Republic
Abstract
The article focus is the phenomena of celebrities involvement with politics. The focus here is - direct presidential vote in the Czech Republic and the campaign of main candidates.
The authors first provide insight into the political system and context of the presidential elections, theoretical framework, research design, and methodology. As the first of its kind, the direct vote for the Czech presidency in 2013 was an exceptional event.
In terms of political campaigning, an interesting aspect of the election was in the unprecedentedly high involvement of celebrities. Based on data from focus group research (6 FG altogether conducted across the country), the aim of this article is to analyze audiences' perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the presence of celebrities in the campaign.
Using Bourdieu's field theory, two different attitudes of the respondents towards the blending of the field of politics with the field of popular culture are identified - the strict rejection of this blending and its acceptance as part of the contemporary conditions of political communication. Furthermore, differences in audience's perception between the inhabitants of different localities are explored with attention to their possible impacts on people's trust in celebrities' political behavior and in the functioning of politics as such.
The article brings many interesting findings and it is an important contribution to the research in campaign studies, political marketing, and political communication.