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The objective of this study is to investigate what type of personalization is more successful in shaping an authentic image of the politician. Two politicians; Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been chosen for the study. Hence, the questions that the study seeks to address are; What type of personalization is most successful in shaping an authentic image of Hillary Clinton? and What type of personalization is most successful in shaping an authentic image of Bernie Sanders? The method employed for this study is a survey experiment designed to compare perceived authenticity between the respondents for two different personalization types; privatization and emotionalization. The survey experiment, conducted during November and December 2023, had a total of 102 valid respondents. The data with perceived authenticity for the two personalization types were presented in a bivariate regression analysis. Results reveal that privatization is more successful in shaping an authentic image of Hillary Clinton, particularly among female respondents, indicating gender-based variations. For Bernie Sanders, the study finds no clear preference between privatization and emotionalization overall, but a gender-specific analysis suggests that privatization is more successful among female respondents.

The study of political communication is an old and diverse field, and the media has been proven to have an effect on their readers. The narratives that they create in their reporting can be as damning as they can be auspicious. Therefore, the study of media and how they frame certain events is as important as it has ever been. The democratic primaries in 2016 were certainly an interesting event. Hillary Clinton, the apparent nominee of the party, faced off against Bernie Sanders, who, in America, is something as unusual as a democratic socialist. How were these two polar opposites framed? To find out, a framing analysis was made on New York Times and Washington Post, two of the largest newspapers in the US. The analysis was built around four “events” that were deemed important in the election. 195 articles were analyzed. The methods that were used were both quantitative and qualitative, and the theories of framing (how the media depicts the election) and agenda-setting (what the media deems to be important) were applied. The results showed that the two newspapers did not differentiate all that much from each other, except for a few percent in certain aspects. All in all, the narrative was obvious. Clinton was the candidate that would go on to win the nomination. She was also the most suitable candidate. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, was framed as the loser and as unsuitable. Though he was consistently framed as having more integrity than his opponent. Clinton was also the candidate that had the biggest focus on her. This was true for all of the events, and in both newspapers. The implications of the study are twofold. First, Sanders was consistently painted in a negative light, which created an undesirable narrative and gave him negative momentum. Secondly, the virtual duplication of the narratives in New York Times and Washington Post suggests that there was some kind of consensus. Either Clinton really was the obvious nominee for the party, or the media hampered Sanders chances to clinch the nomination by depicting him in a negative manner.