Just before participating in the very last leaders’ debate, Dominique Anglade posted a video on the social network TikTok showing her wearing a candy pink jacket and dancing to a song by the Black Eyed Peas. It has been viewed over 800,000 times and received thousands of positive and negative comments.
The following Monday, the politician participated this time in The week of the 4 Julies, to the Noovo network. His daughter Sophia, 10, accompanied him on the set. She subjectively judged her mother’s dance to be quite average. On the other hand, she objectively predicted her mother’s victory in the elections.
Such is the mixture of public activity and private life in this era of hypermediatization. We also recently saw, on their own social network accounts, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, from Québec solidaire, with his new baby; PQ player Paul St-Pierre Plamondon with friends bowling; curator Éric Duhaime in the training room. Over the past two years, Prime Minister François Legault has released photos of his wife (with a declaration of love) and even an image of his mother on his 92nd birthday.
“Candidates now claim authenticity themselves, and this is the great novelty,” explains Guylaine Martel, professor in the Department of Information and Communication at Laval University and specialist in the analysis of media discourse. “I am thinking of Dominique Anglade. It’s so big: it’s someone serious who, all of a sudden, is wearing little pink jackets and dancing to say, “See how authentic I am.” It is more assumed than ever. »
The professor refers to the analysis grid of “peopolization” developed in France by Jamil Dakhlia, which differentiates the suffered from the consented. The first is not considered. A typical case has just emerged with the short video of Justin Trudeau singing Queen on the sidelines of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Some blunders stick for years and make cartoonists happy, like the shower cap worn by former Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe.
The “peopolization” chosen by the personality itself shows it in a private environment to expose a more human side. “This frosty side is perceived as more sincere, more authentic, whereas the construction of the image, whether private or public, is a construction”, underlines the specialist.
Justin Trudeau would be the overall champion of this representation, perhaps due to his training as an actor. “To one degree or another, at all times, all politicians have had to play a part, have had their pictures taken with babies, have shown up with their wives when they win a nomination,” she notes. The current technical means only make it possible to construct a more sophisticated staging. »
Democracy in America
Quentin Janel does not think less, American evidence in support. He analyzed the roots of this interested manipulation of the electoral campaigns of the XIXe century in the United States in a doctoral thesis submitted in 2020.
“The personalization of campaigns and political marketing was already done, by identifying candidates to the people and the instrumentalization of private life,” he said in an interview. And it is no coincidence that the United States had very personalized campaigns very early on. Their system focuses a lot on the president, whereas parliamentary systems, like Canada, came later, in the 20e century, to this type of political communication. »
This propaganda mechanism was already operating on two levels two centuries ago. On the one hand, it highlighted the exceptional qualities and prowess of the person who presents himself, and a strong emphasis on the military career in the warrior republic, as, for that matter, in autocratic regimes. On the other hand, personalization relies on a phenomenon of identification with the basic electorate. Yes, the candidate is exceptional, but he remains an ordinary man.
In the amplified caption, George Washington, the Cincinnatus of his day, tilled his field, led the revolution, and then returned to his farm. Washington, however, practices the ” grandstand to stay above the fray. In the long run, the revaluation of the candidate is done by a kind of “peopolization”, before the use of the term develops strongly, in the second half of the century.
“Political marketing focuses on the deserving worker and their family,” says Janel. We introduce his wife, then his children. At first, in the biographies of the candidates, the woman is not named, then she is. And at the end of the century, we bet on their character, their physical appearance, their wardrobe. The texts explain the daily life of the candidate, what his home looks like, so that people can imagine that it is their neighbor, in fact. We are really in very, very contemporary things. »
The factory of consent
Admittedly, the arrival of radio, then of television, allowed a massification of political communication. Obviously, the Internet has launched us into an era of candidate hyper-personalization. The description of the daily newspaper is no longer enough: Instagram or TikTok allow voters to enter it. In addition, social networks also offer a targeting capability unimaginable until recently, so to speak one message tailored for one account at a time.
“However, I relativize the impact of political communication in democratic regimes,” adds Quentin Janel. I’m not saying it doesn’t have an effect, otherwise the parties wouldn’t be spending so much money. But I don’t believe that political communication has the magic effect that is sometimes attributed to it. »
“A set of variables regarding income, education, social class define the vote. I don’t think that with good classic or digital propaganda, we manage to transform a voter who is a priori united to make him vote for the Conservative Party. It is more complicated than that. »
Its basic idea is that the ways of campaigning are constrained by media technologies without being defined by them. “That is more directly linked, in my opinion, to the political culture of a state and its institutional system,” he says.
Professor Martel in turn notes that the requirement of authenticity and simplicity seems to distinguish the politics practiced here.
“I think it’s linked to the idea we have of democracy [au Québec], she says. We attribute a positive value to human beings, whom we consider as our equals. In France, leaders are valued a little above the fray, because the social hierarchy is prized. Here, we value the ordinary, simplicity, even on the part of exceptional, talented, intelligent people, but who must remain like everyone else. It’s Celine Dion, what…”