Lights, Camera, Campaign: The New Power of Video in Political Communication

In the 2023 Greek parliamentary elections, it wasn't a fiery speech or a lengthy manifesto that stole the show — it was a 15-second TikTok video. As the Prime Minister playfully addressed voters through a viral clip, one thing became clear: political communication today is as much about visual storytelling as it is about policy. From Facebook livestreams to Instagram reels and TikTok trends, audiovisual content has moved to the heart of campaigns, reshaping how leaders connect with the public.

The Visual Turn in Political Messaging

Not long ago, campaigns revolved around press releases, TV ads, and text-heavy social posts. Now we live in what scholars call the attention economy, where attention is scarce and fleeting. To cut through the noise, strategists have turned to short, punchy videos and striking visuals that grab eyeballs instantly. This shift has reduced the relative role of text online, as teams favor formats that are easily digestible and shareable (Wittenberg et al., 2021).

Posts with images or videos consistently outperform text-only updates. A marketing study showed that visuals significantly boost user interactions, amplifying a campaign's reach (Li & Xie, 2020). Even though the persuasive advantage of video over text may be modest in controlled experiments (Wittenberg et al., 2021), in practice video's ability to trigger emotion and convey personality makes it indispensable.

Data Spotlight: Greece 2023 — A Campaign Goes Digital

A recent peer-reviewed study of Greece's 2023 national elections analyzed 1,222 social media posts by the leaders of New Democracy, SYRIZA, and PASOK-KINAL across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, and TikTok (Papathanassopoulos, Karadimitriou, Souliotis and Rousopoulos 2025). The results capture how politicians now orchestrate their messaging:

• Twitter led the pack. Both the Prime Minister and the opposition leader relied most on Twitter for real-time messaging, while PASOK's leader favored Facebook. These choices reflect global trends where incumbents and major candidates dominate Twitter's fast-paced environment (Vergeer & Hermans, 2013).

• TikTok entered the campaign. Mitsotakis became the first Greek politician to campaign systematically on TikTok, mixing political messaging with humor and informality. His team's approach was so effective it even won an advertising award. As Cervi et al. (2023) note, TikTok is now a frontier of "politainment," blending politics and entertainment to engage younger audiences.

• Instagram humanized the candidates. Over 60% of posts showcased campaign stops, while nearly a quarter highlighted interactions with ordinary people. This personalization aligns with Larsson's (2021) observation that Instagram has become central for projecting a relatable image.

• Video eclipsed photos. In two of the three campaigns, video posts outnumbered static images by a wide margin. As Papathanassopoulos et al. (2025) observe, politicians increasingly exploit the "semiotic power of moving images" to convey urgency, emotion, and authenticity.

Together, these findings underscore a campaign cycle where multimedia content was king. Facebook and Twitter were the workhorses, Instagram personalized the message, and TikTok pointed to the future. Across all, visuals — and especially video — were central.

Emotion, Virality and Voter Engagement

The study also showed what drives reactions online. Posts that attacked opponents or used emotionally charged rhetoric generated the highest engagement, echoing research that moral outrage and conflict act as accelerants on social media (Blassnig et al., 2021). At the same time, personalized and interactive content proved powerful: posts where leaders voiced personal opinions or directly responded to citizens drew significantly more interaction (Papathanassopoulos et al., 2025).

Importantly, visuals amplified these effects. A Facebook video of a candidate rebutting an opponent drew far more reactions than the same argument in text form. As Lilleker (2019) argues, visual political communication taps into emotion and psychology in ways text rarely can. Still, strategy matters: overly harsh attacks did not always perform better, highlighting the need for balance (Hansson et al., 2023).

Conclusion: Storytelling in the Video Age

From the viral TikTok clip to the Instagram photo-op, it's clear that audiovisual content now lies at the core of political communication. Video in particular commands attention, conveys personality, and travels fast across platforms. The Greek case shows that leaders who mastered the interplay of content and format — delivering personal, emotional appeals in the right medium — reaped the rewards.

For campaigners everywhere, the lesson is simple: in an age of information overload, messages must be visually engaging and platform-specific, or risk being ignored.

At Celyphos, we've seen firsthand how powerful a well-crafted video can be in amplifying a campaign's story. Modern audiences expect to see and feel a message, not just read it. Those who embrace the new audiovisual playbook are far more likely to capture hearts, minds, and votes.

References

Blassnig, S., Udris, L., Staender, A., & Vogler, D. (2021). Popularity on Facebook during election campaigns. International Journal of Communication, 15, 1–21.

Cervi, L., Tejedor, S., & Blesa, F. G. (2023). TikTok and political communication. Media and Communication, 11(2), 203–217.

Hansson, S., Fuoli, M., & Page, R. (2023). Strategies of blaming on social media. Communication Research, 51(5), 467–495.

Larsson, A. O. (2021). The rise of Instagram as a tool for political communication. New Media & Society, 25(10), 2744–2762.

Li, Y., & Xie, Y. (2020). Is a picture worth a thousand words? Journal of Marketing Research, 57(1), 1–19.

Lilleker, D. G. (2019). The power of visual political communication. In Veneti, Jackson & Lilleker (Eds.), Visual political communication. Palgrave Macmillan.

Papathanassopoulos, S., Karadimitriou, A., Souliotis, D., & Rousopoulos, V. (2025). Social media campaigning in Greece: The case of the 2023 national parliamentary elections. Journalism and Media, 6(3), Article 142.

Vergeer, M., & Hermans, L. (2013). Campaigning on Twitter. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 18(4), 399–419.

Wittenberg, C., Tappin, B. M., Berinsky, A. J., & Rand, D. G. (2021). The (minimal) persuasive advantage of political video over text. PNAS, 118(47), e2114388118.