1. Introduction

Methodological support for the study was provided by Andrea Taddei, Università degli studi Roma Tre.

Multiple correspondence analysis is a procedure for assessing the relations between categorical or ordinal variables. One of the objectives of the analysis is to reduce the information present in the data structure in a reduced number of macro-variables. The following variables were entered (variables that contribute to the construction of the factors): posters: Type (Textual/Photo/Chart), Purpose (to show a situation or action), Presence/Absence of the party symbol, Presence/Absence of references to partisan family, Presence/Absence of other political symbols, Presence/Absence of verbal references to the State, Presence/Absence of verbal references to the EU, the EU Representation (Positive/Negative/neutral/not represented), Presence/Absence of Humor, Presence/Absence of the leader, Presence/Absence of visual references to status, Presence/Absence of visual references to the EU. Thematic (Labor/Economic /European/Security/Welfare/Value/Ideological/Policies/Other issues). Spots: Type 1 (Animation/Cartoon/Fiction/Graphic text/Real Life/Talking Head), Type 2 (Rational/Emotional), rational aspects of the message (Competence/Concrete data/Consistency/Justice/Reliability/Other), Emotional aspects of message (Amusement/Anger/Compassion/Empathy/Enthusiasm/Fear/Pride), Presence/Absence of the leader, the leader’s communication style (or Smiling Friendly/or Serious, Worried/Neutral), Presence/Absence of visual references to the State, Presence/lack of visual references to the EU, the EU Representation (Positive/Negative/neutral/not represented), Presence/Absence of verbal references to the State, Presence/Absence of verbal references to the EU, tone of the message (Feeling good/Common people /political program/Negative attack), the leading type (Formal/semi-formal or not). The following explanatory variables were taken into consideration: geographical area (Continental Europe/East Europe/South Europe/North Europe), entry period in the EU (Founder country/First enlargement/Second and Third enlargement/Fourth enlargement/from 2004 until 2016), European Political Group (Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR)/ALDE/EFDD/European People’s Party parliamentary group (PPE)/Greens/The Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA)/GUE/NGL/NA/S&D), Assigned seats (≤ 2 /> 2). In both cases (posters and spots), only the first two factors extracted from the analysis were used. This decision was based in part on the finding that the first two factors reproduce most of the inertia/variability present in the data structure – poster 82 percent, spots 70 percent).