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The relevance of candidate image research as an element of political impression management has been scrutinized and contested, as it has been the case for candidate image research in many other scientific domains. For decades the emphasis of political science research was on more conventional topics such as the influences of political ideology, the impact of political rhetoric, the role of political structures and institutions. Nevertheless, with the birth of mass media and maybe even more so with the more recent introduction of social media, the emergence of a predominant visual culture has put candidate image at the centre of political impression formation processes. The managing of political impressions deserves particular attention and profound research. In this article we present an overview of relevant theories and research linked to candidate image within political impression management. The article will firstly discuss how the trend towards perception politics emerged and will revisit the role of perceptions and the formation of politically relevant impressions. Secondly, this article will focus on the politically suitable appearance and the concept of candidate image as an important part of both offline and online political impression management.

Social media, and Twitter in particular, are playing an increasing role in the day-to-day activities of politicians (Weber Shandwick, 2014). Before the digital revolution, the relationship between the politician and the voter was intermediated by journalists and broadcast media. In contrast to traditional media, social media are presumed to enable politicians to engage directly with the electorate (Kruikemeier, Van Noort, Vliegenthart & De Vreese, 2015). In the last decade, there was a growing interest in the role of social media in election campaigns, triggered by Barack Obama's electoral presidential election victory in 2008 and more recently by Donald Trumps' triumph in 2016 (Rodriguez-Andres, 2018). The research presented in this article answers three main questions. First, who are the politicians using Twitter for campaigning purposes and what variables can predict Twitter use? Second, when do Belgian politicians use it and with which frequency? And third: do tweeting politicians perform better at the ballot box? The main findings reveal that a Flemish candidate has a higher probability of 18,7% to be present on Twitter compared to a candidate from the French community. Another important finding is that there is no significant association between the number of tweets and number of preferential votes, although a trend towards significance was observed for Flemish politicians.

This article introduces the concepts of political impression management and perception politics. It furthermore discusses results from empirical case studies by the authors using experiments and applying recent research models. Three main points of interest will be addressed: sound bites, the effects of appearance in politics, and personality profiles in the media. According to the view of political impression management, politicians and political parties control the impression they make on the audience (De Landtsheer, 2004). But first and foremost, this article tries to bridge the domain of political impression management with the domain of political marketing. The article concludes with some critical thoughts on the influences between political impression management and democracy. Adapted from the source document. COPIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM: HAWORTH DOCUMENT DELIVERY CENTER, The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580

This paper investigates the fit between the strategic posture of a political party and its political market orientation, and analyses the impact of this fit on party performance. For this purpose, a configuration theory logic is applied to the context of the political market; in particular, we develop strategic profiles (i.e. strategic postures and political market orientation) of four Belgian political parties represented in the Flemish Parliament. By comparing the strategic profiles derived from a questionnaire administered to 3148 party members with those of 'theoretically ideal' profiles, we uncover the 'strategic misfit' (or 'misalignment') for each party and then relate this misfit to party performance. Results indicate that there is a strong, negative relationship between the misalignment of actual and perceived strategic profiles on the one hand and performance on the other. However, the 'ideal profiles' differ with the strategic posture of a party. Thus, our findings show that it is not so much the strategic posture itself that will determine superior performance, but it is the strategic posture that the party aligns with implementing a particular political market orientation that is the most important factor. [Copyright John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.]

This paper investigates the fit between the strategic posture of a political party and its political market orientation, and analyses the impact of this fit on party performance. For this purpose, a configuration theory logic is applied to the context of the political market; in particular, we develop strategic profiles (i.e. strategic postures and political market orientation) of four Belgian political parties represented in the Flemish Parliament. By comparing the strategic profiles derived from a questionnaire administered to 3148 party members with those of 'theoretically ideal' profiles, we uncover the 'strategic misfit' (or 'misalignment') for each party and then relate this misfit to party performance. Results indicate that there is a strong, negative relationship between the misalignment of actual and perceived strategic profiles on the one hand and performance on the other. However, the 'ideal profiles' differ with the strategic posture of a party. Thus, our findings show that it is not so much the strategic posture itself that will determine superior performance, but it is the strategic posture that the party aligns with implementing a particular political market orientation that is the most important factor. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.