ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to argue for the relevance in political science of utilizing "dramaturgical" characterizations in the study of political leadership. It attempts to introduce briefly a tentative political concept, "media style," which could be used to define the way in which a political actor builds his image in the media for the purpose of projecting this image onto a mass audience. The chapter specifically attempts to illuminate and define, through a case study, the media strategies of one of television's first symbolic leaders and issue advocates, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. As scholars broach the issues of significance about modern day symbolic leadership, it argues that it is the leader's media style—his interactions with the media to convey his message—that essentially shapes, molds, and casts the symbolic image of the individual leader onto the public mind.
