Visualizing Representation: How do ethnic minority candidates convey symbolic representation via their visual communication strategies on Facebook and Instagram?

Politicians increasingly rely on image-based platforms like Facebook and Instagram to post pictures that depict them working in parliament or for their constituency, or to share more private aspects of their life. Most studies on visual campaign communication focus on MPs' appearance or their visual framing of specific issues. Until now, research on the topic has failed to explain how the visual communication strategies of politicians can lead to better representation of badly represented voters such as voters from an ethnic minority background. I argue that even though all politicians use their social media account “symbolically”, ethnic minority candidates are particularly motivated to show those groups directly or to refer to them through specific cultural references. As MPs’ own identities are intersectional, I compare the visual communication strategies of ethnic minority MPs of different countries, genders and parties. I collect all Instagram and Facebook posts of 43 ethnic minority candidates from Switzerland, Germany and the UK over the course of four months and code the samples by hand. The results show that ethnic minority candidates of liberal parties include more cultural references into their images, while ethnic minority politicians of conservative parties use references pertaining to their party.