What Are the Characteristics of Defacements of Election Posters?

AXEL PHILIPPS investigates modes of visual protest. In this video, he describes his research of defacements of election posters on the streets. In order to determine the characteristics of these defacements, his research team used so-called ‘street reading’. They focused on defaced election posters on the main streets of Leipzig, Germany. Comparing their material to theoretical concepts drawn from the literature on the topic, they discovered that, mostly, the defacements are not very subtle but purely destructive – in contrast to the examples usually discussed in scholarly writing. Their most important finding was that these defacements often function as a channel for people’s sentiments that are not evident in the media or political discourse.