Personalised, de-ideologised and negative? A longitudinal analysis of campaign posters for German Bundestag elections, 1949-2017

Abstract

Faced with fundamental societal changes such as partisan dealignment and mediatisation, political parties in Germany as well as in other Western democracies professionalise their communication. Drawing on the concept of professionalisation of political communication, the present study investigates changes of campaign posters for German Bundestag elections from 1949 until 2017 with regard to personalisation, de-ideologisation and negative campaigning. By using a quantitative content analysis of visual and textual elements of campaign posters (N = 1,857) and logistic regression analyses, we found an increase in visual personalisation and in visual ideologisation. However, no upwards trend was detected regarding negative campaigning across the four phases of political campaigning. Moreover, we found no empirical evidence for an increasing textual personalisation or textual de-ideologisation. All in all, the findings of this longitudinal analysis indicate an increasing visualisation of political communication.