An element-based approach is appropriate to unfold these strategies as it captures them by contrasting the overall level of usage of formal and informal visual elements. Communication strategy is more complex as it may simultaneously apply several formal and informal visual elements to convey messages.

Second, we are aware that content analysis carried out by multiple coders cannot cover the wide array of visual elements and meanings conveyed by images. On Facebook, political actors are distinguished from ordinary users, as they appear as public figures; news consumption is common on the site; and politicians can draw upon textual cues more intensively to express political messages. Comparing the responses over that time shows a general increase in the willingness to share data (and thus engage in Open Science). Turning to the engagement patterns associated with different visual communication tools, the results of multilevel negative binomial regression models are shown in Table 4. The findings show that the visual communication on both platforms is highly personalized, so our first hypothesis is supported.

Most posts are campaign-related, and even if their shares are lower than on Facebook, official clothing, other politicians, logos, party colors, and settled design are still frequently employed on Instagram. The circulation of photographic images of the protests, and of those injured or killed, has to be understood in the context of visual and photographic censorship by the Iranian regime. Existing work extensively demonstrates that content that focuses on politicians’ personal character and activity is more frequently liked on Facebook ( Bene 2017; Gerodimos and Justinussen 2015; Heiss et al. One example he uses to illustrate this is the situation in Hong Kong where the wearing of masks was outlawed in 2019 during the democracy protests, as many protesters wore them as protection from tear gas but they also had the benefit of concealing one’s identity. The protests and how photographic imagery is used in them are both part of a longer history of resistance and revolution in Iran.

It is this implicit basic assumption of the power of images to influence reality that we address in this book. It won the Best Book Award 2022 in the International Political Sociology section of the International Studies Association. However, this notion does not seem to be particularly reflective to users’ observable preferences: According to our findings, there is only a minor overlap between the visual elements preferred by politicians and users.In crisp and assured prose, Levin reveals the era to be messier and more complex than previous studies have allowed it to be. It should be top of the agenda on the AI risk register with two major elections – in the UK and the US – looming large next year.

The aim of the inductive analysis was to formulate categories that describe the images in a detailed way and find the most appropriate groups of categories that help investigate as many aspects of the image as possible.

Interactions between Candidates and Followers on Facebook during the Hungarian General Election Campaign of 2014. Visuals that were posted on both platforms are also extremely personalized, with very similar distributions as in Instagram posts. On Instagram, considering the lack of virality and the less invasive use of algorithmic filtering ( Bossetta 2018), the strategic relevance of user engagement is more limited, but it can still be perceived as a proxy of the popularity and success of a post. In contrast, on Instagram, politicians do not differ from ordinary users; political content rarely appears in the news feed; and due to the fact that users can rely less on textual or—because they are less likely to follow people they interact with offline—personal cues, visuals are extensively used to express something of the individual’s personal character, similarly to the way highly followed celebrities and influencers represent themselves there. Furthermore, selfies, personal content, and references to popular cultural objects show no significant relationship with likes on either platform.