Authentic images: Body, Contagiousness and Political Photography in the Time of Instagram

Abstract

Based on the theoretical and methodological framework of Greimas' discursive semiotics, as well as on Landowski's sociosemiotics, in this article I analyse the discursive strategies through which the body is portrayed, on Instagram, in order to construct apparently authentic political leadership. My hypothesis is that the authenticity-effect promoted by these images is based on a principle of aesthesic manipulation, that is, on the simulacrum of a sensitive interaction that gives life to a reciprocal mirroring between the leader and their followers.