Photography as a strategic tool in political communication. A comparative study of Barack Obama and Donald Trump

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 15,5/20 ('sehr gut'), , language: English, abstract: For both, Obama and Trump, the political communication via official photographs serves the purpose to convey and reinforce their political core messages. Still, both take a very different approach since they also have very different key messages to send out. In the case of Donald Trump the official photographs can be considered as to be set in a broader political 'communicative context' to underline his core message of him being the central figure to solve America's problems. For Obama, this applies in particular to his unifying and optimistic message ('Yes we can') of the United States of America as well as to his image as a young, agile President from a new generation of politicians.