Notes based on 2015-2016. What is political communication?Political communication= ‘the interactions between politics, media and the public’. There is a triangle between those three factors. It deals with the relationship between political actors, media and the citizen. Research is driven by the question who ‘shapes’ this relationship. The focus is on power relations!Does political communication evolve?Yes, political communication evolve. Evolutions go together with larger societal trends (individualisation, depillarization, the crisis of parties, increased voter volatility, commercialisation etc.) Parties became less powerful, people are more individual. Political parties do more effort to get votes. Media and politics have been commercialised. Media are crucial, but not always the same extent and in the same way (over the years). 4 phases of Mediatization (Strӧmbӓck, 2008) First phase of mediatization: mediation (Western World, post WOII) = When the media become the main communication channel between politics and the publicSecond phase of mediatization: media has some influence Media become more independent, higher journalistic professionalism, the political system still has the...