Is the Party Over? Personalization in Austrian National Election Poster Campaigns, 1945 - 2017

This contribution examines the degree of personalization in Austrian election poster campaigns. Have parties used their poster campaigns mainly to promote their top candidate or to put their policy claims forward? And which are the campaign factors that favour a higher degree of personalization in political advertising? A high degree of personalization can be a result of stable and reliable political communication focusing on specific candidates (Hallin and Mancini 2004); parties also put forward their top candidates in times of crisis when stakes are particularly high and they try to play their highest card. (Karvonen 2010; Kotler and Kotler 1999; McAllister 2007). Research shows that the level of personalization in election campaigns has increased and will further increase as a tendency towards the “presidentialization” of campaigns (Plasser and Plasser 2003). The contribution examines the degree of personalization that parties employ when they address their Austrian voters directly through election posters. Posters as long-lasting means of communication have proven to be valuable for the examination of long-term trends in political communication. Austria is the country in Europe where election posters are used more extensively than anywhere else (Schierl 2017), yet they have been studied only sporadically. The full population data is obtained from quantitative image content analysis of more than 1,000 election posters from nine competing parties in 22 campaigns between 1945 and 2017 and is analysed using multilevel analysis. Results show that Austrian election campaigns follow internationally recognized patterns in terms of campaign personalization: The focus on top candidates has steadily increased over the course of the post-war period. Outliers occur, however, and I attempt to explain them with factors specific to the party’s particular campaign in that year, examples being the FPÖ’s campaigns focussed solely on Jörg Haider as early as the 1990s. The results can provide a basis for further research on the employment of campaign strategies in political advertising.