Politiker eller influencer - en gråzon? : En studie av svenska partiledares användning av Instagram

This thesis examines Swedish politicians' use of Instagram and how they choose to represent themselves. In recent years, there has been a discussion about politicians' use of social media and whether their behavior can be compared to celebrities or even influencers. Today we get access to more of their personal thoughts and private life from their social media where many politicians portray themselves as celebrities or influencers. Individual politicians attract more attention than their respective parties, have the opportunity to circumvent traditional media, and partially control how they are presented to the public through their own social media accounts. They can also interact directly with their followers and build strong connections with potential voters. The purpose of the thesis is to identify how this phenomenon manifests itself in Swedish party leaders' use of Instagram. Through a qualitative textual and visual analysis of the party leaders' respective Instagram posts the study aims to answer how they choose to portray themselves and if they use any communicative strategies to create interaction with their followers. Through a quantitative approach the study aims to answer which type of posts create the most engagement and to what extent they portray themselves as private or professional. Among other things, this study shows that both Annie Lööf and Ebba Busch portray themselves on different levels, both private, professionally and combining them both for political gain. Posts that are characterized by being personal have a higher engagement rate than professional and political posts. This study contributes to the political- and communication field and looks at different aspects of how Swedish party leaders portray themselves on Instagram.