Politics as a Spectacle: The Role of Advertising and Physical Image in Visualizing a Political Candidate as Merchandise and Their Impact on Voting Intentions

Abstract

Advertising no longer describes objects but can impose on Society the obligation to consume whatever is produced. In this way, political advertising has become more commercial, bringing new ways of doing politics where advertising strategies achieve an adapted policy. New advertising strategies have turned the political process into a spectacle encouraging new political behaviour. Through the Society of the Spectacle and the Visual Frame, this quantitative study analysed how advertising uses the physical image of a political candidate as the merchandise that voters acquire as a force of social relationships. In addition, this study is novel in exploring the role of political ideology as a moderating variable that may dampen the effects between image advertising and voting intention. With 582 participants in an electronic survey analysed through PLS-SEM, the study reflects that, during the spectacle process, the political candidate can generate relationships, value and satisfaction through their physical attributes. It enables a purchase through the vote since, once the perception is manifested, the frame is accepted, leading the voter to make non-objective decisions. This research contributes new knowledge to the Spectacle Society and Visual Frame theory by providing a new way of analyzing political candidates and how advertising activates political behaviour.