art, science & business/symposium: »Looking through the Lens: The External Staging and Self-Dramatization of Politicians«

Politicians are under constant pressure to create and promote themselves. They have to represent their office, interest the citizens, and entertain audiences. In the face of the importance of visual mass media, this threefold duty keeps increasing. Cameras dissect the politicians’ bodies, an editorial staff selects, corrects or manipulates the finished images, and then they ultimately go into mass-media’s circulation.

Which criteria, strategies, and procedures do political people have at their disposal to influence this production and circulation of images? And how does this body-image production influence political communication in a democracy? These and further questions are discussed with political, media, and communications scholars, with sociologists, representatives of the media and the political theater, political advisors and with politicians themselves. On Friday evening, a podium discussion featuring prominent speakers takes place, at which former minister president Lothar Späth and Peter Voß, former director of SWR broadcasting, speak. Film and media-studies scholar Gertrud Koch moderates.

The symposium was initiated by the political scientist Dr. Paula Diehl, who was a fellow of the art, science & business program at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in 2007/2008.

Please register with Julia Warmers, jw@akademie-solitude.de, Tel. +49 (0) 711 99 61 91 35.
Admission free. Thursday 8 pm, Friday 10 am – 9:30 pm.