Loading...
The colors of the populist radical right : The strategic use of hue and saturation in party logos
Curini, Luigi Moffitt, Benjamin John Zulianello, Mattia
Curini, Luigi
Moffitt, Benjamin John
Zulianello, Mattia
Abstract
Populist radical right (PRR) parties tend to stress their differences from other parties. Yet at the same time, PRR parties have increasingly sought to integrate into party systems across the globe. In seeking to understand the way that PRR parties negotiate this paradoxical situation, the literature tends to focus on their policy offerings or discourse. We, on the contrary, investigate an underestimated aspect of their political communication: their visuals. Namely, we focus on the question of if and how PRR parties communicate their similarities or differences from other parties via the color profiles of their logos, given that color is a key way that political parties can signal (a) their ideological commitments (via hue) and (b) their approach to “valence” considerations (via saturation). We expect PRR parties’ attempts to signal their integration into party systems to be mainly sought via saturation, as a proxy for valence perceptions related to parties’ seriousness and competence, while we expect them to signal their difference from other parties via hue, given the incentive for PRR parties to communicate their ideological distance from non-populist parties as a marker of distinctiveness in the political market. We test our research questions by analyzing parties’ logos across 35 democracies in recent elections. Results largely confirm our expectations, demonstrating the utility of focusing on the visual aspects of PRR parties’ political communication. Interestingly, the results do not replicate if we focus on populist parties beyond the PRR party family.
Keywords
populist radical right, political parties, political communication, color, visual politics
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
Issue
Page Range
1-22
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Arts and Humanities
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Files
Moffitt_2024_The_colors_of_the_populist_radical.pdf
Adobe PDF, 877.91 KB
All rights reserved
- Embargoed until 9999-12-31
SM_Moffitt_2024_The_colors_of_the_populist_radical.pdf
Adobe PDF, 355.55 KB
All rights reserved
- Embargoed until 9999-12-31
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled
Controlled
Controlled
Notes
© The Author(s) 2024.