Image Building. The Visual Politics of the Israeli Defence Forces on Facebook.

Visual symbols have always been an integral component of political communication. However, in recent years the rise of digital technologies and the ubiquity of social media platforms have significantly increased the importance of visual communication, augmenting the ways in which politics are performed and communicated. Political actors have embraced the practices and logics of social media to target audiences directly with compelling visuals and to leverage their potential for reputation management and image building. Despite the central role of images and visuals in political communication, the majority of research on the role of digital media in politics has privileged text over images as the most potent subject for research. Further, the majority of studies that have engaged with visual political communication practices have thus far focused upon episodic instances of protest, political campaigns and elections, highlighting the effects and audience perceptions of social media visuals through an emphasis on engagement metrics. Whilst engagement metrics can offer important insights into the communication effects of content, this research recognises that it is equally valuable to examine this visual content in an in-depth and rigorous manner. This paper challenges prevailing forms of political communications research in three ways. First, by recognising the importance of the visuals of social media as a potent means of political communication. Second, by extending visual political communications research to an alternative space of political practice, that of an active military institution online. Third, by providing an empirical visual thematic analysis of the main narrative themes emerging from the timeline images uploaded to the official Israeli Defence Forces Facebook page over a period of three years between 2015- 2018 (n=650). This paper contributes to studies of political communication by illustrating how a traditional political actor, that of a military institution, utilises visuals on a popular social media site (Facebook) to project an image of authenticity, capability and legitimacy to its audience.