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Media and Politics, Vol. 4 - 1997, No. 3
Participation in the State of the Ordinary: Being “Yourself” as a Representative
The relationship between the media and politics is often negatively described as being in a state of confusion and turmoil in which new standards of public media performance are eroded by viewer ratings, commercialism and trans-nationalism. In this article, I will give examples from the Swedish setting to show how the relationship between media and politics is generally conceived, by indicating how media-workers and politicians become idealised in stereotypical roles of bad vs. good. .The State of the Ordinary. is what we refer to as a tendency toward everyday practices of .ordinariness. in language use and in the general rule of authenticity in the media, making room for a new kind of politician who claims to be not a "politician" but simply .him or herself. as a politician. Being "yourself" as a representative is a perennial feature of the attempt to legitimise dominant roles at the top of the hierarchy of power distribution.
