Historically, men have always had a superior position over women, which has been
portrayed in all kinds of media representations. Visual communication is an important
part of our daily life since the reality is reflected through images. The development of
the Web has led to increased interaction opportunities, and new ways to communicate,
mainly through pictures. Politicians have embraced this and use social media as a part
of their daily work. They also use social media to portray themselves from a more
personal angle, which has created a higher interest for their personal life. Therefore this
study aimed to examine how a group of high ranked Swedish politicians portray
themselves on the social media Instagram, with focus on gender. Furthermore this study
aimed to explore and analyse how their representation relate to traditional gender roles.
The study was conducted by analysing images. Twenty qualitative, semiotic analysis
were made. Five analysis from each politician have contributed to the empirical
material. The results showed that gender roles portrayed on Instagram is not traditional
to its nature. Instead we found new patterns which showed similarities between how the
examined men and women portrayed themselves. The results also indicated that
traditional gender stereotypes are not applicable to this group, as they portray
themselves from a more diverse angle.