Abstract
The paper proposes a comparative interpretation of the visual role assigned in the electoral campaigns of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007 and 2011) and Dilma Rousseff (2010 and 2014) to the pro-government activists as a mobilized collective and organized support. This, after years of electoral campaigns that privileged a different image: that of the candidate directly linked with voters, without any mediation. The empirical material gathered and analyzed consists of a selection of Argentine spots and the whole of the electoral programs of the Free Electoral Air-Time (HGPE) (2016–2017) in Brazil. Using qualitative content analysis of the electoral advertising, we argue that the 2011 and 2014 campaigns (in Argentina and Brazil, respectively) display a greater visual hierarchy of the militants in comparison to the previous two campaigns (2007 and 2010). And, for the Brazilian case, we also state that the 2014 campaign introduced a second type of symbolic representation of activism, through references to the trajectory of Dilma as a youth militant during the military dictatorship.
activism; electoral campaign; Dilma Rousseff; Cristina Kirchner
