Magin, M., Russmann, U., Vulcano, R., von Nostitz, F., Wurst, A., Gattermann, K., Alonso-Muñoz, L., Balaban, D. C., Baranowski, P., Burai, K., Cachia, J., Deželan, T., Garaj, M., Hermans, B., Kallinikos, K., Kannasto, E., Kruschinski, S., Lappas, G., Machado, S., Macková, A. P., Segesten, A. D., Skulte, I., Vučković, M., & Wall, M. (2026). Faces of Europe: Structural Drivers of Visual Personalization in Political Parties’ Facebook Campaigns. Media and Communication, 14, Article 11739. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.11739
Social media has become one of the most important arenas for election campaigning, encouraging political actors to adapt their communication to increasingly visual and attention-driven platforms. Our new study provides the first large-scale cross-national comparison of how political parties across 23 EU member states used visual personalization on Facebook during the 2024 European Parliament election campaign. Focusing on two distinct dimensions—individualization, which emphasizes individual politicians, and privatization, which portrays politicians in their private lives—we examine how these strategies are shaped by party characteristics (populist vs. non-populist, government vs. opposition) and broader political contexts (electoral systems and democratic quality). Drawing on a manual content analysis of 14553 Facebook posts published by 138 political parties and coalitions, we find that parties relied far more heavily on individualization than privatization and that party-level characteristics were stronger predictors of visual communication than country-level factors. The findings demonstrate that different forms of visual personalization follow distinct political logics and should be examined separately when studying digital election campaigns.
Individualization vs privatization
Across Europe, parties relied much more heavily on individualization than on privatization. Images most often focused on one or two politicians, while depictions of politicians’ private lives remained relatively uncommon. This suggests that parties used Facebook’s visual affordances to give politics a more personal face and strengthen the visibility of individual politicians, while generally maintaining professional boundaries by avoiding extensive portrayals of politicians’ private lives.
Party characteristics
Populist parties were more likely to highlight individual politicians in their campaign visuals, but they were less likely than non-populist parties to portray politicians in private settings. This suggests that populist parties used social media to strengthen the visibility of political leaders and foster direct connections with voters, while maintaining a carefully managed public image.
Government parties also relied more heavily on individualized visuals than opposition parties, emphasizing political leaders rather than the party as a whole. However, government status had no effect on the use of privatized communication. Together, these findings may indicate that privatization does not play a central role in European party systems and European Parliament election campaigns, both of which remain strongly focused on parties rather than individual politicians.
Country-level factors
The country-level factors examined in the study had a more limited influence on visual personalization than party characteristics. Electoral systems did not affect whether parties used individualized or privatized visuals. However, parties operating in more liberal democratic contexts were more likely to use privatized communication than those in more authoritarian environments.
Conclusion
Overall, our findings show that political parties have adapted their visual communication to the logic of social media, but they do so in different ways depending on their political characteristics and the context in which they operate. While highlighting individual politicians has become a common campaign strategy across Europe, portraying politicians’ private lives remains relatively rare. These findings underline the importance of treating visual personalization as a multidimensional phenomenon and suggest that future research should continue to examine how different forms of personalization evolve across platforms and political contexts over time.
The article is free for everyone to read and download here (open access).