ISSN: 2222-6990
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Within the framework of structural transformations in modern societies, the emergence of social media as privileged environments of symbolic interaction has profoundly reshaped the ways in which the relationship between political leadership and citizenship is constructed. The growing centrality of the image does not simply represent an evolution of communicative practices, but rather an indicator of broader changes in processes of social meaning making, in forms of mediation, and in the logics underlying the production of consensus. Disintermediation and the rise of a visual culture contribute to redefining the dispositifs through which relationships between individuals and the public sphere are articulated, fostering forms of access to politics characterized by perceptual immediacy, symbolic simplification, and emotional intensification. Within this context, political leadership tends to take shape as a socio symbolic construction, in which the individual leader assumes the role of a catalyst for collective identifications, rather than serving as a vehicle for articulated programmatic content. Within this process, the contribution examines the figure of digital leaders as the outcome of specific socio technological configurations. In conclusion, the proposed analysis makes it possible to problematize the centrality of the image not only as an aesthetic or communicative element, but as a sociological dispositif capable of influencing the forms of political legitimation, the modes of participation, and the collective representations of the public sphere in contemporary societies.
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