scholarly journals The First Prime Minister of the Instagram Age: The Visual Rhetoric and Image Management of Justin Trudeau

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren Dingwall Dingwall

This research focuses on an analysis of the visual rhetoric and image management of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Instagram photographs. As Instagram has grown in popularity, politicians and celebrities alike have harnessed the platform to convey their stories, brands, and messages to audiences, thereby curating and controlling the images presented to a wider audience. In Trudeau’s case, Instagram is employed as a strategic tool for image management. The literature review draws from key relevant subject areas: visual rhetoric and rhetorical studies, research on Instagram, political communication, and visual methodologies. Drawing on key elements from Hill (2006), Filimonov et al. (2016), and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (Harrison, 2003) research, research questions focused on examining the use emotional appeals, image management strategies, and how Trudeau engages his audience. This research investigates how Trudeau’s image is crafted using visual rhetoric and image management in his Instagram photos through a content analysis. The project involved coding fifty of Trudeau’s Instagram images—through content analysis—systematically from October 19, 2015-March 2, 2017. Examining these images provides insight into the rhetoric and image management constructed through the visual images Trudeau presents on Instagram. Findings reveal that emotional appeals are a prominent factor in the images, that Instagram is used as a strategic tool for image management, and that Trudeau’s images engage his audience by balancing personalization and professionalism while inviting users in on private personal and professional moments. This research highlights key techniques in strategic political communications with key tools for image management and building visual rhetoric through visual means on social media. The methods explored in this research can inform professional communicators’ decisions regarding the images posted to social media (and Instagram in particular) and their content, their captions, and how they work to construct a narrative on social media that aligns with offline communications goals.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren Dingwall Dingwall

This research focuses on an analysis of the visual rhetoric and image management of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Instagram photographs. As Instagram has grown in popularity, politicians and celebrities alike have harnessed the platform to convey their stories, brands, and messages to audiences, thereby curating and controlling the images presented to a wider audience. In Trudeau’s case, Instagram is employed as a strategic tool for image management. The literature review draws from key relevant subject areas: visual rhetoric and rhetorical studies, research on Instagram, political communication, and visual methodologies. Drawing on key elements from Hill (2006), Filimonov et al. (2016), and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (Harrison, 2003) research, research questions focused on examining the use emotional appeals, image management strategies, and how Trudeau engages his audience. This research investigates how Trudeau’s image is crafted using visual rhetoric and image management in his Instagram photos through a content analysis. The project involved coding fifty of Trudeau’s Instagram images—through content analysis—systematically from October 19, 2015-March 2, 2017. Examining these images provides insight into the rhetoric and image management constructed through the visual images Trudeau presents on Instagram. Findings reveal that emotional appeals are a prominent factor in the images, that Instagram is used as a strategic tool for image management, and that Trudeau’s images engage his audience by balancing personalization and professionalism while inviting users in on private personal and professional moments. This research highlights key techniques in strategic political communications with key tools for image management and building visual rhetoric through visual means on social media. The methods explored in this research can inform professional communicators’ decisions regarding the images posted to social media (and Instagram in particular) and their content, their captions, and how they work to construct a narrative on social media that aligns with offline communications goals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Milica Vučković ◽  
Tanja Oblak Črnič

Social media are usually accused of being one of the major forces for personalization of ‏political communication and consequently for depolitization of recent politics. However, personalization ‏seems to stimulate certain users to pay more attention to political issues and to act more responsively to ‏such highly personalized political profiles. This article presents the results of a longitudinal analysis of ‏online presence of Barack Obama to assess his political communication through Facebook. It also answers ‏if presence of emotional appeals and private life cues in the posts have any effect on users’ responses in‏ terms of numbers of their likes, comments and shares. Based on a quantitative analysis of 2804 Facebook ‏posts, published in the period from 2008 to 2016, the results of content analysis revealed that Obama ‏used his Facebook fan page almost exclusively to communicate about political issues instead of his ‏personal life. The analysis also confirmed that a smaller number of posts, which contained emotional ‏appeals or cues from private life had significantly higher numbers of users’ responses than posts that ‏were not emotionalized or privatized. While personalization of Obama’s political figure is part of a wider‏ debate, this study confirms that the presence of private cues and emotional appeals stimulates greater‏ responsiveness from Facebook users.


2021 ◽  
pp. 174276652110399
Author(s):  
Jane O’Boyle ◽  
Carol J Pardun

A manual content analysis compares 6019 Twitter comments from six countries during the 2016 US presidential election. Twitter comments were positive about Trump and negative about Clinton in Russia, the US and also in India and China. In the UK and Brazil, Twitter comments were largely negative about both candidates. Twitter sources for Clinton comments were more frequently from journalists and news companies, and still more negative than positive in tone. Topics on Twitter varied from those in mainstream news media. This foundational study expands communications research on social media, as well as political communications and international distinctions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margareta Salonen ◽  
Elisa Kannasto ◽  
Laura Paatelainen

Societal discussions flow on social media platforms that are studied by researchers in multiple ways and through various kinds of data sets that are extracted from them. In the studies of these discussions, multimodality unravels the semiotic modes that are communication resources through which meanings are socially and culturally created and expressed. In addition, the viewpoint of affordances can be used for viewing the functions of social media platforms and their discussions. Furthermore, this review was conducted to better understand how social media comments are researched from the perspective of multimodality in the context of digital journalism and political communication. A systematic literature review and qualitative content analysis were used as methods. The review discovered that the studies under review were not that high in multimodality and that text as an individual mode was the most common one. Furthermore, Twitter was the most researched platform and the one where the use of modes was more thoroughly explained.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Raquel Tarullo

The communication that political leaders have performed on social media in recent years demands constant and novel approaches for understanding how politicians interact with their supporters in the digital space. In this sense, the aim of this research is to examine the communication that Argentine political leaders display on Facebook, the most popular social media amongst Argentineans, during a highly polarized and politicized period in the country, taking special attention to the role that emotions play in this digital scenario. Using content analysis of the texts included in the posts, the results of this empirical work demonstrate that, on Facebook, political leaders prefer to communicate emotive messages rather than non-emotive contents and positive emotions rather than negative ones. Besides, hope is not only the most expressed one but also the emotion that generated more interaction among digital political supporters.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 441-453
Author(s):  
Ashari Sakti Alim ◽  
Dian Eka Rahmawati

Abstract This paper wants to analyze how Anies Baswedan conveyed his political communication on Twitter social media. In this contemporary era, one of the most dominant political communications is social media, where political communication plays an important role because it can have an impact on political participation, political socialization. In the political field the role of social media is very important because it contributes as openness and transparency, Anies Baswedan is one of the political actors who play social media Twitter to convey political communication while increasing its popularity. In accordance with its previous political promises of integrated transportation and ok oce program. Anies is not uncommon to convey and show the development of political promises that have been running on his Twitter social media. in disseminating information through social media Twitter has proven to be very effective because many users around the world. This study uses descriptive qualitative research methods and analyzes using the help of NVIVO12 Plus software applications. The results of this study revealed that Anies Baswedan's political communication on Twitter social media was very focused on public services in DKI Jakarta. Political communication from Anies Baswedan also received a lot of responses from his followers on his Twitter account. This can be seen from the number of retweets and mentions done to Anies Baswedan. Anies Baswedan was also quite active in conveying his political communication through Twitter social media such as notifying work programs, political branding, giving political talks that were light in nature and also related to public services in DKI Jakarta. Keywords : Political Communication, Anies Baswedan, Social Media, Twitter Abstrak Tulisan ini ingin menganalisis bagaimana Anies Baswedan dalam menyampaikan komunikasi politiknya di sosial media Twitter. Pada era kontemporer ini salah satu komunikasi politik yang paling dominan adalah media sosial, dimana komunikasi politik sangat memegang peranan penting karena bisa berdampak untuk partisipasi politik, sosialisasi politik. Dalam bidang politik peran media sosial media sangat penting karena berkontribusi sebagai keterbukaan dan transparansi, Anies Baswedan adalah salah satu aktor politik yang bermain sosial media Twitter untuk menyampaikan komunikasi politik sekaligus menaikan popularitasnya. Sesuai dengan janji politiknya terdahulu yaitu transportasi terintegrasi dan program oke oce. Anies tak jarang menyampaikan dan memperlihatkan perkembangan janji politiknya yang telah berjalan di sosial media Twitter miliknya. dalam penyebaran informasi melalui sosial media Twitter sudah terbukti sangat efektif karena banyak penggunanya diseluruh dunia. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif deskriptif dan melakukan analisis dengan menggunakan bantuan aplikasi perangkat lunak NVIVO12 Plus. Hasil dari ini penelitian ini mengungkapkan bahwa komunikasi politik Anies Baswedan di sosial media Twitter sangat befokus pada pelayanan publik di DKI Jakarta. Komunikasi politik dari Anies Baswedan juga mendapatkan banyak respon dari pengikutnya di akun Twitter hal ini dapat dilihat dari jumlah Retweet dan mentions yng dilakukan kepada Anies Baswedan. Anies Baswedan juga cukup aktif dalam menyampaikan komunikasi politiknya melalui sosial media Twitter seperti memberitahukan program kerja, Branding politik, memberikan perbincangan politik yang sifatnya ringan dan juga terkait dengan pelayanan publik di DKI Jakarta. Kata Kunci : Komunikasi Politik, Anies Baswedan, Sosial Media, Twitter


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-427
Author(s):  
Robert Rajczyk

Prime Minister Candidates’ Communication Management on Facebook During Parliamentary Elections Campaign 2019 in Poland The article presents the results of a research, which was carried out in the last month of the parliamentary election campaign in 2019. In this research, the processes of communication conducted by candidates for deputies, Mateusz Morawiecki and Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, representing two rival parties (PiS and KO), were analysed – both candidates were simultaneously appointed as potential presidents of the Council of Ministers. The research was carried out using the qualitative method, taking into account the content of the profiles of both candidates on Facebook. Research results are part of the stream of analyzes, devoted to the importance of social media during election campaigns, as well as in the processes of political communication conducted by politicians.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gal Yavetz

PurposeSocial media has been widely adopted by politicians and political parties during elections and routine times and has been discussed before. However, research in the field has so far not addressed how a political leader's private or official social media account affects their message, language and style. The current study examined how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uses his private Facebook account, compared to his use of his official Facebook page “Prime Minister of Israel.”Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the author identified the differences between these two digital entities using in-depth content analysis based on all posts (N = 1,484) published on the two pages over a 12-month period between 2018 and 2019.FindingsThe study’s findings indicate that Netanyahu regularly uses his personal page to address topics that are not represented on his official page, such as mentioning and attacking political rivals, presenting political agenda, and criticizing Israeli journalists and media organizations. Netanyahu's private Facebook account is also used to comment on personal events such as the criminal indictments he is facing and family affairs.Originality/valueThe findings highlight the need to investigate the different identities that politicians maintain on social media when they use personal or official accounts, sometimes on the same platform. The medium matters, yet the author also discovered that a leader's choice of account and its title are also important.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2021-0004.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Hamdan Daulay ◽  
Mohamad Hasan As'adi

The political turmoil in Malaysia following the resignation of Mahathir Mohammad (February 2020), and the success of Muhyiddin Yassin in the position of Prime Minister, made the political atmosphere even more dynamic. There are those who think that Malaysian politics currently shows a serious problem with the fierce battle between political figures. There have even been various accusations that say there is treason that justifies any means to achieve the goal. Muhyiddin Yassin, who is Mahathir's representative in the Malaysian Indigenous United Party (PPBM), was accused of treason. Likewise, Azmin Ali who was deputy chairman of the People's Justice Party (PKR) was accused of treason by Anwar Ibrahim, so that Azmin was fired from the PKR. Mahathir Mohammad is a senior Malaysian political figure with long experience in politics. The political communication that Mahthir has built is very intelligent with his success as a UMNO figure and the Prime Minister of Malaysia for more than 20 years. As a doctor, since the age of 25, he has been active in politics through the UMNO party. Mahathir understands that politics is very dynamic and political figures must be able to adapt to the existing political dynamics. It was this political dynamic that made Mahathir leave UMNO when he saw the many deviations committed by his figures. Mahathir then formed a new party, Partai Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) which succeeded in ending UMNO's domination in the 2018 elections. Mahathir's political communications were truly tested when he succeeded in becoming the second prime minister of Malaysia at the age of 92 years. The political message delivered by Mahathir was able to convince the Malaysian people about the direction of national development. His long and successful experience in politics made him known as the father of modernization in Malaysia. However, in the end, he was removed by Muhyiddin Yassin (his own friend) from the seat of Prime Minister at the age of 94. Because actually in politics there are no friends and enemies who are eternal, it is political interests themselves that are eternal.


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