POLITICAL DISPLAY: ANALYSIS OF POLITICIANS' LEVELS OF PERSONALIZATION AND SELF-PRESENTATION ON FACEBOOK

Abstract

This study examines six Israeli politicians' Facebook profiles and the levels of self-presentation as they are expressed through the posts they publish, to what extent they display themselves as representatives of their respective political party or faction, to what extent they promote themselves as independent politicians, as well as how much personal information they tend to reveal in these posts and whether any difference could be identified in those regards between right-wing and left-wing politicians. Findings show a high level of personalization in these posts, and in more than 80 percent of them the writers explicitly referred to themselves rather than just to their party, organization or faction. Among representatives of the left a higher number of posts contained elements of personalization, although the difference was not significant. The study also shows that where the post's writers portrayed themselves both as representing themselves and as representing a group – right-wing politicians present themselves as representatives of very large groups and even as representatives of the whole nation. On the opposing side, left-wing politicians tend to present themselves as representatives of much smaller groups, and sometimes even elitist ones

Keywords

• social media,facebook,self-presentation,Political personalization,political personality

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