Political Accountability, Communication and Democracy: A Fictional Mediation?

This study, mostly through a critical review, aims to give the description of the accountability in political communication, how it works and how it helps the addressees of the political campaigns to understand and control the politicians. While doing this it will also examine if accountability can help to structure a democratic public participation and control. Benefitting from mostly theoretical and critical debates regarding political public relations and political communication, this article aims (a) to give insights of the ways political elites use to communicate with the voters (b) how they deal with accountability, (c) to learn their methods of propaganda, (d) and how they structure their personal images. The theoretical background at the end suggests that the politicians, particularly in the Turkish context, may sometimes apply artificial (unnatural) communication methods, exaggeration and desire sensational narrative in the media to keep the charisma of the leader and that the accountability and democratic perspective is something to be ignored if the support is increasing.