The power of visuals in Trudeau’s political campaign to target youth
The power of visuals and the construction of a visual rhetoric to position in the voter’s mind was key in Justin Trudeau’s 2015 political campaign. Here, youth was successfully targeted highlighting the importance of visuals and connection in this generation.
The influence of social media and the ways that technological tools can almost bring masses together is outstanding. However, Trudeau’s targeting and inclusion of youth in his campaign was successfully demonstrated by using his advantage as a younger candidate and by getting his“young” image spread across social media platforms to create momentum and advance the liberal party ideas of change.
The Obama 2008 presidential campaign was an example of how social media can be used as a tool to bring people together, and engage individuals with similar perspectives. Obama was able to reach young voters that were almost not interested in voting before because they didn’t see their opinions valued nor included by other presidential candidates in the past. The clever use of social media in Obamas’s campaign is an example of social media as a successful tool for reaching a younger electorate.
Visual Rhetoric
Professor Tracey Bowen an expert in visual communications at the University of Toronto, teaches a course on mass media and popular culture, where she mentions that “popular culture is political and that candidates often situate themselves to create a brand of who they are.” If one looks at celebrities, these are often presented in different contexts by media outlets. That is because the public wants to see celebrities when they are acting like ordinary people. By doing so, people can establish a connection between celebrities and themselves.
To some extent, a political campaign is very similar to a marketing and advertising strategy of a product or service. In both cases, the product or candidate needs to be positioned in the consumer´s or voter´s mind to influence a purchase or voting decision.
Thus, similar to what celebrities do, candidates often engage in the same behavior to look, or “seem” to look closer to the public. In a political campaign, candidates have the right to present themselves to the public in a way that aligns their ideologies and values with their political party. Professor Bowen notes that tools or mechanisms of perception like ethos, pathos and logos are used in political campaigns in order to have a desired impact on a particular audience or audiences. Ethos brings credibility to the candidate; pathos creates emotion and logos resonates logic.
Similarly, the ethos appeal used by Justin Trudeau is the fact that his father had a reputation in politics being a former Canadian Prime Minister. This way, individuals can associate Trudeau with his father’s legacy in politics. Trudeau’s pathos appeal was created by involving his family during the campaign and attending events with them. Lastly, logic was accomplished by the facts presented in his speeches and displayed in the Liberal party website and other sources of information.
The scholars Grabe and Bucy, in the book “Image bite politics,” highlight the importance of visual rhetoric and suggest that there are manifestations of an ideal candidate that can be accomplished with technological editing techniques to frame and give more context to the information being transmitted. Grabe and Bucy suggest that the “ideal candidate” looks at two different positioning. First, statesmanship, where the candidate borrows ethos from other entities and other people to give him more credibility as a compelling and powerful person. Second, compassion, where the candidate appeals to pathos or emotion by being photographed or seen attending events with his family and children (2009). The idea of compassion intends to make the candidate appear more human and this technique gives credibility since people can imply that Trudeau’s experience as a father of three young children can be a good asset when dealing with issues of a country that are related to family issues or humanitarian help.
Social Media Impact
According to The Toronto Star, social media played an important role on 2015 Canadian elections, where Trudeau was the leader in number of tweets. There were 150,000 tweets by the @justintrudeau account, 68,385 by Harper’s account @pmharper and only 21,602 tweets by @thomasmulcai (Levingson King, 2015).
Additionally, Canadians that meet the voting age and over are heavy users of social media. Statistics Canada reveals that, “Individuals under the age of 45 had the highest rate of use, at 94%, while 80% of those aged 45 to 64 used the Internet”. Moreover, the individuals aging 20–64 years represent 62.1% of the Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 2015). This means that a great segment of the population (62.1%) that are within the voting age are actively using the internet and be targeted through this medium.
These numbers are not news for political leaders in Canada. However, each party decided to have a different approach to different segments of the population. In the case of Justin Trudeau, his young image, his friendly and informal tone used when giving speeches made him seem more approachable and more human. The New York Times acknowledges that one of the most important changes in Trudeau’s government could be tone. Similarly, in an interview with Vice News, Trudeau mentions that he is willing to engage people in a modern conception of politics, where there is open and transparent communication, where he can be more active, engage citizens and listen to their concerns. During the interview Trudeau says he is going to have a “government that actually trusts its citizens”. Moreover, in Trudeau’s victory speech, he states “It’s time for change in this country, my friends, real change”. This informal language used to refer to the crowd as his “friends” makes Trudeau seem more relatable and closer to people; something the youth values. Young people tend to be more relaxed, outgoing and value friendship, therefore Trudeau’s approach of being an active politician giving speeches outdoors, and listening to what communities had to say had a positive effect engaging a younger demographic with a shared mentality.
Some examples of Trudeau’s priorities paired with the liberal stance on issues that young people care about include:
· Lowering tuition fees
· Concerns about the environment and future generations
· Legalization of Marihuana. Trudeau mentions in Vice News interview “Canada ranks number one for underage use of marihuana”.
· Missing and murdered indigenous women. Trudeau states that the highest proportion of young people in Canada are part of indigenous communities. Thus, it is important to give them a chance to contribute and a chance to be heard, in order to bring justice (Vice News, 2015).
Finally, it is important to mention that the message and intention in this writing is to understand that sometimes an image is not just an image. It is far more than that. It is the creation of imagery to send a message. It is about the assemblage of images to convey a desired meaning for an audience. Trudeau’s young image aligned with his liberal ideologies and government plans involving youth, constructed an image of himself that positively stimulated a very visual generation.
Visual rhetoric can be very stimulative for youth and when paired with the correct narrative and channel of communication, it can be an attention grabber that influences people. Therefore, visuals on Instagram, visuals within news articles or direct sentences accompanied by images on Tweeter, can help a candidate or any person construct an image of themselves that can be shared massively to influence others. In the case of Trudeau, a very positive one that led him to victory.
