Becoming a Representative in Mass Media Democracy: The Politician's Third Body

• In Event: Becoming Representative

Abstract

Becoming a representative is always a question of symbolism. Max Weber’s observation that political institutions have their own charisma, which is transferred to the representative once she gets an institutional role, is crucial for understanding political representation in performative terms. Institutional representatives, elected or not, take part in a ritual of passage - swearing on the bible for the US or something less formal such as receiving official confirmation of the new position. The representative is bound to institutional ethics by the symbolism of the ritual. Institutional ethics also guide the performances of politicians who do not occupy any office. The expectation or desire for political office is sufficient to embed representatives’ performances within what Weber called “Amtsgedanke”, the institutional thought.
Following Ernst Kantorowicz’ classic account, we can distinguish two logics of performance. In analogy to the King’s two bodies, we perceive two realms of mise en scène: the private and the political-public. Accordingly, politicians in general and institutional representatives in particular have to distinguish two types of performances: those executed in private social interaction and those related to political representation, involving political symbolism and institutional ethics. In mass media democracies however, that is not the whole story. Especially after the transformations of the media system in the 1990s, political communication, and in consequence, political representation, have become more and more hybrid. Infotainment and reality TV influence the ways politicians present themselves to mass media audiences. Politics and celebrity are increasingly intermingled – witness the cases of Berlusconi in Italy and Trump in the USA. The borders between the private and the political, reality and fiction, and politics and entertainment have become fluid, directing political performances to the hyperreal and virtual domain of mass media images.
In this light, the paper reformulates Kantorowicz’ dual description of political symbolism by adding the third body of the political representative. Accordingly, political representatives are embedded in a threefold logic: the private (analogical to the natural body of the king), the political-public (analogical to the symbolic body of the king), and the hyperreal (the third, new body, that only exists in mass media). The third body is deeply dependent on a mise en scène able to blur or breach the borders between politics and entertainment, public and private, and reality and fiction. The hyperreal body of the representative does not exist outside of the mass media, but is connected to the institutional role of the representative since it is performed by her/him. The paper will depict the third body and its operation in political representation.

Author

• Paula Diehl, Christian Albrechts University of Kiel