Visual Representation of Politicians’ and Parties’ Performance in Times of Crisis: A Comparative Analysis with particular reference to Spain, Portugal and Greece

The global financial crisis, which erupted in the summer of 2007 and intensified a year later, changed the European political landscape. Especially economically weaker states in Southern Europe were badly affected and came under considerable pressure. The situation has been perceived as increasingly dramatic due to outstanding debts, the disadvantageous economic outlook, severe social cuts, the worsening of standards of living, and the helplessness of “traditional” political elites in terms of response to obvious problems. Eventually the tensions caused by the economic and financial arrangements suggested on part of the EU and international financial institutions and in the main executed by national governments also have had an impact on how political representatives and parties are seen by the media and the public. At the same time new social and political movements and political parties, which are criticizing traditional ways of political agenda setting and decision making, have attracted more and more supporters. Against this background the empirically based paper zooms in on visual representations of Spanish, Portuguese and Greek politicians’ and parties’ (“old” ones as well as “new” ones) performance in times of crisis and tracks relevant representations in selected media in recent years. Since images do not only attract attention, but constitute a referential framework for the messages conveyed, the contribution underlines the importance of political imagery for both the perception of political issues and political actors. In terms of data generation, online editions of selected dailies, weeklies, and magazines, as well as social media are analyzed using a mixed visual methods approach. The latter comprises in particular visual framing, visual context analysis, and political iconography. Based on a first, quantitative, research step, the choice of the examples selected for a more in depth qualitative analysis is justified by their paradigmatic character.