ABSTRACT
THE NATURE OF CANDIDATE IMAGES Nimmo and Savage (1976) defined an image as “a human construct imposed on an array of perceived attributes projected by an object, event, or person” (p. 8). This definition views candidate images as multifaceted phenomena with several key dimensions and identifiable modes of orientation. That description implies that the very nature of political images is a complex psychological element that could potentially be described in any number of ways, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. Not surprisingly, that is what has happened in the academic community, as different researchers have described the nature of images in different ways.
