"Americanization" Without Trivialization: Analysis of Newspaper Reporting about Vesna Pusić's 2009 Presidential Campaign

Abstract

The election campaigns in democracies around the world are becoming more alike, and modern trends accompanying them are called "Americanization" trends. The main goals of this research were to detect "Americanization" trends in Croatia and to see whether those trends can be adopted without trivialization of political discourse. The research was conducted through content analysis of the reports on Vesna Pusić's 2009 election campaign published in the national daily newspapers. The analysis showed the existence of many "Americanization" trends in both media reporting and Pusić's statements. However, since the main focus of her statements remained on the current socio-political issues, the conclusion is that the candidate’s political communication can be "Americanized", but at the same time retaining its substance, hence, not trivialized.