Visualizing political communication on Spanish social media: an analysis of Andalusian political parties' communication on Instagram

Instagram is a social networking site widely used in political communication, with candidates and parties throughout the world developing profiles and managing their images on this site. However, research focusing on Instagram is still limited in comparison to production aimed at other networks - a research gap which is reflected in the scarcity of studies on Instagram political communication in Spain. This article aims to broaden the literature on Instagram use by addressing the profiles of political parties instead of individual candidates, by focusing on regional parties instead of national ones and by shedding light on underexplored aspects of visual political communication. To do so, the authors focus on the Spanish Autonomous Region of Andalusia and content-analyse the way in which political parties in this region manage their visual presence. The sample consists of 1,805 Instagram posts collected from the official profiles of the five parties with parliamentary seats in Andalusia. The content analysis of the posts is based on variables related to visual aspects of the images being published: visual content and formats, presence of party leaders, party symbolism and the predominant colours used in publications. Results indicate that Instagram's visual content depicts party symbolism and uses colour in a strategic way. However, the personal presence of leaders is not exploited equally by all parties, indicating that the management of political image on social media differs between parties.