1. Introduction: Visual Political Communication

This chapter sets the scene for the volume and provides the rationale and relevant background information on the use and power of imagery. Put simply, human culture is essentially a visual culture. Visuals have long been a central feature of dynamics of power, the dynamics of politics. Visuals have always been manipulated; however, we are now at a stage in the evolution of communication technologies where anyone can produce a fake image and enjoy political influence by doing so. The rest of the book examines the under-researched area of visual political communication and aims to offer a theoretically driven, empirically grounded survey of the central role visual communication plays in political culture. Such a project is crucial at this time; the advent of new media technologies and the growth of social media have created novel ways of producing, disseminating and consuming visual products that demand further investigation as well as consideration of the theoretical and methodological approaches required to understand this communication environment.