Personal Brand of a Politician in an Election Campaign – Political Personas on Facebook

Abstract

A politician’s persona is negotiated on multiple platforms in various ways. Some maintain a strategic, carefully negotiated self, while others reveal more and blur lines between professional and private dimensions of their persona (Street 2004). Together with constituents – who discuss them widely on different platforms – politicians build personal brands which construct their lives as performances and products to be sold (van Dijck 2013; Enli 2015a). Persona representations provoke feelings and politicians are expected to effectively manage scrutiny of both private and professional elements of their public selves.