The aim of the proposed research program is to map and explain the occurrence of popularization and personalization in the Dutch democracy since the beginning of Dutch television journalism in 1956 and to study whether and how these processes affect citizens’ political trust and opinions.

This project aims to provide a historical and cultural analysis of changes in political television journalism in the Netherlands. With the latter we mean all news and current affairs programs, talk shows and other genres of infotainment that deal with politics and politicians. We attempt to trace processes of popularization and personalization in particular, and describe their forms and formats, as well as explain their emergence at particular moments in time, and in particular broadcasting organizations and channels.

This project aims to study under which circumstances popularization and personalization affect individuals’ sympathy for particular politicians and their opinions about particular issues. We will examine whether the occurrence and direction of effects depend on level of education, level of political interest, personal features of political candidates in relation to personal features of citizens, all of these being the main issues of contention in the video malaise literature.