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Political scandals have been observed to be increasingly common everywhere. In April 2008, the Finnish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Ilkka Kanerva, was compelled to resign because of the sensation arising from the enormous number of suggestive text messages that he had sent to a young female erotic dancer. During the scandal, the media followed this episode intensively. The present article considers what kinds of qualities for political leadership the media called for during this scandal and how these qualities were justified. The paper is based partly on quantitative but mostly on qualitative content analyses of the four most read newspapers in Finland. The results show five categories, the qualities being professional competence, personal characteristics and behaviour, trustworthiness, maintenance of relations and communication skills. The results show that the requirements imposed by the media are high, but that evaluation of professional competence is still crucial. Further, the occurrence of a scandal seems to trigger discussions on trust in politicians.

Politicians' spouses, usually wives, have received increasing amounts of media attention in recent years. In this paper, the newspaper coverage and photos of two candidates' spouses during the 2012 Finnish presidential campaign are considered. In these elections, campaigns were conducted by a straight couple and a gay couple. Coverage of politicians' spouses has often been observed to perpetuate traditional gender roles, but a gay couple in this context might cause some confusion. This article focuses on what the newspapers reported on the candidates' spouses and on political couples, how balanced the coverage was, and how intimate details of the relationships were discussed publicly. The results show that the spouses' roles were treated in a traditional manner in the newspapers. The woman spouse met conflicting requirements, and the gay spouse was considered in a more stereotypically feminine role than in a masculine role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediatization of politics has been observed to occur in many different ways. In the research of mediatization, one central area focuses on political actors and the degree to which they are governed by media logic or political logic. In this area, the political leaders have a key role. In this study, we focus on the relationship between the media and political leaders. Our first aim is to consider how the Finnish press and the political leaders themselves perceive the role of the media in the work of the political leaders. The second aim is to study how they evaluate what has changed in political communication and why. The empirical data consist of two datasets: data from the newspapers and interview data. The data from the newspapers were collected from four of the most widely read newspapers in Finland over a period of six months. The interview data consist of interviews with leaders from each of eight political parties in Parliament. All the data were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. Most of the results indicate mediatization of politics in Finland, but there are also a few features which do not support the development unequivocally. The political leaders are dependent on the media, but they have not adapted to the media to the extent the journalists suppose. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aimed to outline the current communication skills of political leaders. Media data, in total 5,697 items, were collected from four newspapers in Finland over a period of six months in 2008. The interview data consist of eight interviews with Finnish party leaders. All materials were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. Two kinds of perspectives are described: the media perspective by illustrating what kind of descriptions, evaluations and requirements for communication of political leaders are established in newspapers and the political leaders' perspective by reporting the experiences and evaluations of political leaders themselves. These two perspectives are compared. The findings show that communication skills are a crucial part of competence of political leaders. Three main categories of communication competencies were oral communication skills, media skills, and leadership communication skills. The press emphasized public speaking and the party leaders themselves media skills and leadership communication skills, which seemed to be different from what the leaders in general have. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses how people consider when they use the news service with handheld computer. Comparison between the news service in handheld computer and a newspaper; Dimensions used by people in their comparison; Basic structure of evaluation of a medium.