Media, Power and Public Opinion: Essays on Communication and Politics in a Historical Perspective

This book aims at exploring in a long historical perspective and in a wide historical context the reactions of political institutions and players towards new media and new forms of communication, as well as their strategies in order to combat and/or exploit their effects and potential. This is an original and innovative attempt to combine traditional approaches to the history of the media and politics with studies that aim to directly provide some historical perspective on contemporary preoccupations with ’fake news’ and manipulation of public opinion. Addressing these topics by focusing on specific events and specific contexts as case studies allows us to connect the hic et nunc dimension with the general trend of the history and verify the particular effects of general long-term trends.

Domenico Maria Bruni is Assistant Professor in Modern and Contemporary History at University of Siena and fellow at International Center on Democracy and Democratization - Luiss Guido Carli. He has published a monograph, three collections and many essays on the themes of censorship, freedom of press, mass mobilization and political institutions.