Political and industrial changes during High Imperialism produced social anxiety. Journalists sought explanatory symbols to narrate these changes in the form of short news messages and photographs. Publicity politicians fulfilled this symbolic function. Journalists used celebrity politicians as ‘communicative anchors’, to which they attached overlapping identities of nationalism, imperialism, and modernism. These personae even embodied industrial progress and a ‘business-like’ politics – novel and transparent compared to traditional secretive politics. The politician as a strong ‘captain of industry of the nation-state’ appealed to anxious audiences. The communicative anchor moored individuals to their imagined community. Communicative anchors formed recognizable reference points people could relate to; as projections, journalists infused these anchors with changing meanings. Journalists used these anchors as protagonists to simplify and narrate the complexity of a changing world order. Journalists invoked the power of images, and both technologically and figuratively it was easier to visualize a story about eccentric politicians than about abstract parliaments or bureaucracies. Path dependency followed: the more journalists used anchors to narrate politics, the more useful these anchors became for continuing stories. Consuming these narratives, citizens ‘participated’ in political meaning-making. The politician’s communicative anchoring peaked around 1900, amidst a pervasive press but before further diffusion of institutional power.