French electoral poster campaigns in the twenty-first century

Abstract

France has a several centuries-long history of political posters, starting as early as the French Revolution, and for most of their history, posters have been one of the most popular and far reaching communication means. This chapter focuses on poster campaigns in the twenty-first century. To better understand their role in the general campaign, the chapter reviews the current legal regulations. It then discusses the evolution of poster content throughout the centuries and presents new evidence of contemporary poster campaigns using data from the 2007 electoral year. In a nutshell, the presence of posters in the streets is a credible signal of party and candidate campaign strength. The candidate gender can play a role in the content of posters, and this visual information may be particularly important for male candidates' chances of victory. The final section summarizes the main points and highlights some new research directions.