Introduction

Politics and the media have always been closely interrelated. The very dawn of democratic structures, in Ancient Greece, is inextricably linked to the gradual development of effective systems for the mediation of ideas between political leaders and the public. The formalisation of rhetorical strategies, the establishment of functional environments for public speech, and the creation of accountable systems for expressing the will of the demos, even if at the time that term encompassed only free, male members of the local polis, are all early manifestations of an interdependency between politics and the media.