Picture me in person: Personalization and emotionalization as political campaign strategies on social media in the German federal election period 2021

Abstract

Due to the possibilities of direct communication with voters, politicians successfully use social media for personalization and emotionalization in election campaigns. However, since much of the research is based on text-centered analyses of individual platforms, we examine multimodal strategies of personalization and emotionalization of political candidates across platforms. Through a qualitative content and picture type analysis ( n = 401) of Facebook and Instagram posts, we identify seven multimodal personalization strategies in Study 1. We find that politicians use the two platforms differently; on Instagram, politicians present themselves more privately, whereas on Facebook, a more formal personalization dominates. In Study 2 ( n = 159), we use automated content analytical methods to examine the emotional expressions of candidates within their personalized posts. While positive or neutral emotions dominate the candidates’ self-representation on social media, differences between male and female candidates become apparent: Female candidates show significantly more happy faces than their male counterparts.