Professorial Fellow (Utacas)
1.8.2010-31.7.2011

Office: Pinni B, room 3095
Phone: +358 50 395 1173
Email: pekka.isotalus@uta.fi

My overall research interests include political communication, professional interaction, Finnish speech culture, and communication education. Political communication is nowadays my main research area. I have analyzed political communication from many different perspectives: televised political discussions, campaign trends, politicians’ web pages, and reporting on politicians in the public. During the course of my Utacas year (2010-2011) the focus of research lies at the political leadership. The current state of political leadership will be examined both from the perspectives of the media and the political leaders themselves. The aim is to outline the criteria which the media establish for political leaders. Media data were collected from four newspapers in Finland and the interview data consist of interviews with party leaders. The methodological approach is qualitative. The results are considered from perspective of the trends of political communication, e.g. personalization and mediatization.

Home pages: www.isotalus.fi