The smiling politician: The visual rhetoric of party leaders on Swedish election posters

Abstract

One of the most common ways politicians are portrayed in political advertising is with a friendly, smiling face to persuade the voters to cast their votes on him/her on Election Day. This archetypical image of politicians can be found around the globe even if research shows that smiling faces of politicians to some extent are connected to national and party culture. This article takes the theoretical point of departure in rhetoric and seeks to analyse the use of smile as a way to build ethos in relation to the electorate. The analysis builds on a dataset that consists of more than 3000 Swedish election posters from 1907 to 2019 and tracks the use of the smile as facial expression on posters to the late 1960s. Before that, politicians always put up a serious facial expression on posters. After the breakthrough, the smiling politician has become the dominant portrayal of Swedish politicians on election posters in contemporary politics. The explanation of this development is related to the personalization and intimization of politics, which to a large extent was due to the advent of television. However, a general questioning of authorities and a more equal society are probably also important drivers. There are signs of similar developments in other countries, but the authors call for more studies to validate the results.