Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Visual Elements in Public Journalism Newspapers in an Election: A Content Analysis of the Photographs and Graphics in Campaign 2000

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2004

Abstract

This content analysis examines the use of visual elements such as photographs and graphic elements in public journalism and traditional newspapers during the general election of 2000. Public journalism newspapers used more graphic elements to convey issues and analysis, common ground and solutions, and to present information that citizens can use to contact the media than did traditional journalism, but it did not translate mobilizing information or views of citizens into graphic form more frequently than nonpublic journalism stories, nor did it use more photographs of citizens than candidates, officials, and experts. This paper links the theory behind public journalism, Yankelovich's theory of public opinion, with Paivio's dual-coding theory of how visual and verbal information can be pooled together, to suggest that a better theoretical model is achieved when the theory of public opinion includes the role of visual information in helping citizens come to better public judgment.

Comments

© 2004 International Communication Association

Publication Title

Journal of Communication

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2004.tb02639.x

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