Lo-fi politics. Il brand del politico e lo stile amatoriale in «bassa fedeltà»

The paper examines our era, marked by the emergence of new populisms, with a particular focus on the strengthening of the image of politician and its relation with the electors. The link between the political leader and his community is constantly reinforced through digital platforms. The field of analysis is limited to Italian political communication before and immediately after the election of March 4, 2018. We have studied the image of the deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini in relation to his audience with a qualitative approach, analyzing 21 live streams shared on his official Facebook fan page. The research was conducted starting from the concept of «low fidelity»: a widespread trend in media aesthetics between the electronic and the digital era. The low fidelity of communication is therefore understood as a strategy for the survival of the political brand in a changed media ecosystem, in which it is not enough to massively promote one's own image but it is necessary to re-create spaces of «disintermediate» confrontation, requiring the active participation of the public. The research reveals how the low-fi populist style of communication is not totally new and it is partially inherited from the communicative style of the reality shows and from the first digital amateur practices.