Mediatization of Politics in the Digital Age: Applying Strömbäck and Esser’s Four-Dimensional Framework to Contemporary Political Communication

The rapid evolution of media technologies has fundamentally reshaped how political communication is produced, circulated, and interpreted. This article analyzes the mediatization of politics by applying Strömbäck and Esser’s (2014) four-dimensional theoretical framework to recent examples from the 2024 United States presidential election cycle. While the original theory explains the long-term structural shift in which political processes become increasingly influenced, and in some cases governed, by media logic, contemporary developments such as viral imagery, meme-based political messaging, and influencer-style campaigning reveal new dynamics in the mediatization process. Drawing on foundational literature in mediatization, media logic, and political communication, this article demonstrates how digital platforms amplify media logic through personalization, dramatization, speed, and virality. Contemporary political discourse, exemplified through cases such as the “weird” rhetoric, the viral photograph of Donald Trump following the assassination attempt, and Kamala Harris’s strategic engagement with youth-oriented meme culture, illustrates the deepening integration of media logic into political practices. The article concludes that mediatization has reached a stage wherein politics and media have become structurally interdependent, with profound implications for democratic processes, political representation, and public sphere deliberation.