Abstract

Which changes do social media platforms introduce to Politics communication? In answering this question, the paper takes into consideration Instagram, a platform based on the sharing of visual contents, and more specifically six profiles of women engaged in politics at the national level. it proposes a reflection focused on the application of a visual analysis model, developed by the authors and called SmePi, acronym for Social Media Politics Image. The results highlight how using such kind of platform, characterized by the sharing of visual representation as conversational tools, is far from the trend towards personalization that defines political communication in the age of social media (described by the international debate). Intimization, constructed spontaneity, hyperemotional language do not connote the observed profiles, which are somehow closer to traditional political communication. This traditional approach to the new platform configures Instagram, more than anything else, as an opportunity for staging (constructing a public representation) for politicians whose communicative style remain anchored to an institutional dimension and don’t assimilate the rhetoric of the ordinariness typical of social media communication.