The objective of this study is to explore how citizens were addressed in Swedish electionposters in the eleven national elections between 1908 and 1936. The period coversgreat changes in political life as well as in campaign work of the parties. Election postersare better suited for mobilising citizens than for argumentation and presentation ofpolicy alternatives. The question here is how the parties have used this mobilisingfunction to connect to their voters. More specifically: to what extent have the partiesturned to members of collective bodies such as social classes on the one hand, and toindividuals who may have different political convictions and standpoints, on the other. This study combines a) a quantitative overview where the explicit verbal messages arebeing studied, with b) an analysis inspired by semiotic approaches in which bothdenotative and connotative levels of messages are brought into the analysis.
Paper presented at the Nordmedia 09 conference, Media and Communication History Section, Karlstad 13-15.8.2009