Abstract:

Today, various studies are being conducted on the impact of visual factors on the political leadership image. It is known that social media has been more used by leaders in recent political campaigns and is preferred for visual content sharing. In this context, political leaders pay special importance to share photos on social media accounts to get positive images in the mind of the election. So it can be stated that the leaders are trying to establish a language of communication with the voter through the photo. The clothing preferences of the leaders presented in the photographs, many visual features, such as body languages, can occasionally be presented in the media and they can influence the perceptions of voters. Thanks to social media tools that contribute to visibility, leaders can easily and quickly share their messages and the public can also know them closely. In this study, the role of the photo on the image of the leaders is indicative. For this purpose, the photos shared on the social media accounts of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, Republican People's Party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Nationalist Movement Party leader State Garden were analyzed between 16 February and 15 April 2017. As a result of the study, the images of leaders are generally identified equally, neutral, strong, honest, honest, loving and traditionally.

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