WTI Magazine #23    2014 Mar, 28
Author : Francesca Papasergi      Translation by:

Last week we started a short analysis about Italian leaders' communicative style. Today we will end our digression and go through the attitudes of Mario Monti, Beppe Grillo and Matteo Renzi.

When he was appointed as Senator for Life by President Napolitano, Professor Monti was "just" the previous rector and extant president of Università Bocconi, the former European Commissioner for Internal Market, Services, Customs and Taxation (from 1995 to 1999) and for Competition (from 1999 to 2004). Thanks to his international acknowledgement and his academical fame he became both Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance. Even if he was recognized as reliable and illustrious, many Italians didn't like his unemotional, robot voice, not to mention his blank, unexpressive face. He can be considered neither a leader nor a politician, and he never showed any particular interest in the communicative field.

Beppe Grillo's style is pretty controversial. His violent verbal choices and the discrediting nicknames he sticks at anybody were part of Berlusconi's style too. Accordingly, the bid to confute he is like any other professional politicians is a Berlusconi's characteristic as well. The anti-politics that Mr. Grillo seems to be able to ride brought sundry 'commoners' into the Parliament. Mr. Grillo is the official spokesperson of the 5 Stars Movement and he addresses its political path. The representatives call themselves "citizens-spokespersons", to remark that they - and no one else, especially the Honorable Members of the Parliament - really convey the will of the people. At the beginning, nobody was allowed to speak with journalists but Mr. Grillo, nor they could take part at TV talk-shows. This was a win-win situation: the 5SM was in talk-shows all the time because everyone else talked about it, and it didn't even have to show up. Now, the tv appearances are planned with Mr. Grillo's staff.

The 5SM's house organ is Mr. Grillo's blog; Gianroberto Casaleggio, the Movement co-founder, is a professional in communication. The rivulets of 5SM deploy throughout the World Wide Web thanks to the blog, the MeetUp platform, Facebook pages a-plenty (both official and not) and Twitter. The 5SM proudly affirms that it is possible to run a party without public money, but there are not significant data about the '5SM's business' yet.

Matteo Renzi is the first 2.0 Italian leftist leader. His communicative style reminds people of Silvio Berlusconi, but he says his inspiration is Barack Obama, who he has just met today during Obama's visit to Rome. His heavy use of social networks - mainly Twitter and Facebook, the good oratory and use of slogans, the ability to reach several electoral targets thanks to TV, made him the golden boy of the boot-shaped country's Left. Given its members, the current government can be called progressive-conservative*. Moreover, it is no mystery that Mr. Renzi used to be a boy scout. He still tries to be that good, broadly speaking: he is catholic, and the old communists in Italy don't like it that much. Many of them accuse him to show off like a new Berlusconi, a communicational messiah without any actual content. Only time can prove him or them wrong.

The permanent campaign is a reality pretty much everywhere but in Italy this expression acquires its complete realization: as it is easy to understand, this country is not a quiet place to live if you're a voter.

*This definition comes from a Canadian expression. It used to identify a particular political collaboration in that country during the Twenties. Nowadays, in Italy the government is made up both of leftists and conservatives.