Political Storytelling on Instagram – Key Aspects of Alexander Van der Bellen’s Successful 2016 Presidential Election Campaign

Political campaigns are regarded as increasingly significant influences on election results. Yet, the important visual dimension of campaign communication is severely under-studied. Against this background the paper presents first results of a case study on visual political storytelling during the Austrian presidential elections 2016. The latter can be seen as decisive episode in the country’s campaign history. The elections held on April 24 with run-off votes on May 22 and October 2 provided an interesting case for the analysis of Austria’s changing political (campaign) landscape. In 2016, the field of candidates for the presidency was more diverse than ever. Apart from the unusual electoral process, that attracted enormous attention in Austria and abroad, several important factors can be named to understand the presidential elections as decisive episode in the country’s history of political campaigns. These factors include (1) the diversification of campaign media/contents and the growing importance of online campaigning, (2) an increased visualization of campaign communication, and (3) an amplified use of storytelling strategies for campaign messaging. The paper draws from an interdisciplinary research project which started February 1, 2017 (duration 2 year, financed by the Anniversary Fund of the Austrian National Bank, project leader Karin Liebhart). This project conducts a comparative cross-media analysis of visual campaign communication and aims at reconstructing recurring visual patterns, tracing their use in political storytelling and identifying their strategic functions for the presidential campaigns. Drawing on a visual content analysis of diverse campaign media – ranging from traditional political posters to online content – the project attempts to make a novel contribution to the debate about the modernization and professionalization of political campaigns in Austria. Main emphasis is put on the different ways political stories are conveyed visually. The proposed paper focuses on the visual political storytelling which is employed to shape candidates’ personal and political narratives. Visual storytelling in political communication relies on a wide range of concrete strategies such as the publication of biographical books, the inclusion of family histories or biographically relevant settings and locations in the campaign narrative, or the use of photo flashbacks within the context of the campaign. Visual storytelling can be seen as the use of diverse types of visuals on social media platforms with the aim to craft a graphic story. The contribution reconstructs reslevant processes and provides illustrative examples.