Celebrity Politics

In the past the party press played an important role in Austria. A large number of politicians were member of a founding team and/or editor of a party press and contributed widely with journalistic articles and political essays. After the turn of the century until WW II many of the leading politicians were both: politician and journalist.
Contrary to the era until when a party-press in Austria existed, and the professions of politicians and journalists were connected by frequent exchange between them, nowadays the route from journalism to politics is a one-way-street, if not a dead end. Most of the cases of occupational change from journalists into politics in the last 25 years in Austria seem to have as the first reason the use of journalists’ publicity by parties for election campaigns. The majority of the journalists are prominent and popular news anchors of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). After the ballot, candidates from the media don’t play the prominent role they used to play in the election battle anymore and turn mostly into falling stars. In many cases, those former journalists are not in the position to play an important role in everyday politics and do not reappear on the list of candidates in the following elections.
We intend to describe careers of people switching from journalism to politics (the opposite has never happened in the last 25 years as we know by now) using a research approach based on Bourdieu’s “field theory” as well as on the “economy of attention”: What are the motives of journalists for changing sides and what are the difficulties for them to adapt to new rules of behaviour (“doxa”)?
Moreover the social networks of the candidates will be unfolded and evaluated. In cases of supportive and constructive social networks such as Burt (2000; 2005) describes “career networks” (brokerage and closure) it will be interesting to reveal the crucial points of failing as well as success in politics.