Visual Communication 2001 Abstracts
Visual Communication Division
Defining Visual Communication in the New Media Environment • Linus Abraham, Iowa State University • New media technology provides the journalism academy the opportunity to fashion a transformative change in our understanding of communication • from one that emphasizes language to recognizing the visual modality as a primary mode of communication. The paper canvases for a movement from the balkanized and skills connotation associated with visual communication towards an integrated study of visual communication, both as an intellectual and skill activity. The paper argues that the concept of visual journalism (geared towards training visual generalist and inculcating visual fluency) provides an opportunity to reinvigorate visual communication and locate it at the center of journalism education.
A Visual Experiment in Acceptance: Does Quantity and Location of Blood Affect Readers’ Reaction to a Photograph? • Abhinav Aima and Patricia Ferrier, Ohio University; Les Roka, University of Utah; Lynn Silverstein and James Staebler, Ohio University• This experiment tested the reactions of 265 subjects to manipulated accident photographs, which were empirically constructed across increasing levels of “Gore” and given different geographic “Locations” in the cutline. Nine 7-point measures were designed to test the students’ responses. A three-way Analysis of Variance revealed that the factors of “Gore” and “Location”, or their interaction, did not cause significant variance but the factor of “Sex” did – Males varied significantly in their responses from females.
Affect and Emotion: Eliciting Compassionate Response Via Facial Affect in Visual Images • Courney Bennett, Stanford University • This study aims to extend research on the effects of visual message elements by examining the relationship between facial affect and emotional response. A study was conducted to explore two questions: 1) whether facial affect in visual images influences how compassionately people feel toward the person portrayed visually, and 2) what the relative influence of a message’s verbal and visual elements would be on compassionate response. The findings and their implications were discussed.
Selling the Revolution: Appropriating Black Radical Images for Advertising • Coletter Gaiter and Mohan Dutta-Bergman, University of Minnesota • Media images of 1960s and 70s African American militants introduced a new visual signifier we call “the defiant gesture.” The radicals themselves and the media both skillfully used photographs featuring black men in defiant poses to serve their specific agendas. A new archetypal black male image emerged that is now featured in advertising to urban hip-hop followers. Decontextualized in their current iterations, these powerful images serve divergent cultural and social needs of different audiences.
Establishing a Photojournalism Historiography: An Historiographical Analysis of the Developmental Approach • Timothy Roy Gleason, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh • This paper examines the nature and application of the Developmental historical approach for photojournalism. It examines the approach by describing it, identifying assumptions held by Developmental historians, and lists questions these historians might ask. Then, it uses a communication history model to reveal how this approach can address particular aspects of the model. This is followed by a discussion of the approach’s strengths and weaknesses. Lastly, a conclusion offers some final comments.
Digitally Altered News Photographs: How much manipulation will the public tolerate before credibility is Lost? • Joseph Gosen, Reno Gazette-Journal and Jennifer Greer, University of Nevada-Reno • A quasi-experimental design was used to examine what factors influence public attitudes toward a digitally manipulated news photo, photography in general, and news media. Subjects were shown one of five versions of a photograph. Increasing levels of digital alteration caused lower credibility scores for the published photograph. Credibility of photography and the news media was influenced more by age, income, and education than treatment. Familiarity with imaging software was linked to tolerance of the alterations.
Seeking Gender Equity on the Sports Pages: An Analysis of Newspaper Photos from the 2000 Olympics • Marie Harden, University of West Georgia, Jean Chance and Julie Dodd, University of Florida, and Brent Hardin, University of West Georgia • Researchers conducted a content analysis of five daily newspapers’ publication of photographs during the 2000 Olympic Games to assess the reality of photo portrayals in relationship to gendered participation in the Games, and to assess the existence of sexual difference in the use of photos. The study concluded that the portrayal of women athletes in Olympics competition appears to show continuing change. The researchers conclude that there is good reason to predict a continuing trend of improved gender equity in Olympic sports coverage for women athletes and diminishing portrayals of sexual difference as the number of women athletes competing in the Games continues to increase.
Ideal-Body Media and Ideal Body Proportions 2 Ideal-Body Media and Ideal Body Proportions • Kristen Harrison, University of Michigan • Dozens of studies have linked ideal-body media exposure to the idealization of a slim female figure, but none have examined the proportions of this figure. This study correlates exposure to ideal-body media (television, fitness and fashion magazines) with college women’s and men’s perceptions of the ideal female bust, waist, and hips. For women, ideal-body media exposure predicted the choice of a smaller waist and hips, but not a smaller bust. For both women and men, ideal-body media exposure predicted approval of women’s use of surgical body-change methods.
Southern Mentalities, Photographic Reflections In Black and White: The 1915-1960 Mississippi Pictures of O.N. Pruitt • Berkley Hudson, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • To explain race relations in the South during the last 170 years, historian Joel Williamson posits a template of three, Southern white mentalities: conservative, radical and liberal. These are reflected in photographs of O.N. Pruitt, who between 1915 and 1960 worked in Columbus, Mississippi. Regardless of which mentality is reflected, Pruitt, a white man, moved authoritatively in the worlds of black and white, rich and poor, documenting a complexity at once brutal and genteel.
Normative Conflict in the Newsroom: The Case of Digital Photo Manipulation • Wilson Lowrey, Mississippi State University • It is the contention of this study that journalism is divided into occupational subgroups, each representing a different area of expertise and a different sets of norms and values. Subgroups compete with one another for legitimacy. It is proposed that ethical problems in journalism – the case here is digital photo manipulation – may be viewed as evidence of normative conflict rather than as simply a crack in the ethical wall. Through in-depth interviews and a national survey, it is found that photo manipulation relates mostly closely with organizational complexity and multiplicity of subgroups, while there is some evidence that the newsroom’s normative environment as reflected in the existence of rules, also is related.
A Study Of The Persuasiveness Of Animation When Used As Forensic Demonstrative Evidence • Benjamin Allyn Meyer, Iowa State University • This study assessed that motion is the variable which makes forensic animation persuasive. Three groups of participants read a trial transcript. Each group saw a pro-prosecution or a pro-defense animation, images taken from the animations, or no visual imagery. Pro-prosecution imagery coincided with the physical evidence. Pro-defense imagery contradicted it. Results suggest that when computer-animated displays support the physical evidence, it is the dynamic nature of the animation which makes it persuasive to jury members.
If Looks Could Kill: The Ethics of Digital Manipulation of Fashion Models and Attitudes of Readers • Shiela Reaves, Jacqueline Hitchcon-Bush, Sung-Yeon Park, Gi Woong Yun, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Magazine editors and visual educators need to expand the ethical connections between digital manipulation of fashion models and the increased health crisis of eating disorders. This study examines reader response to the digital manipulation of fashion models and explores readers’ attitudes toward this use of new technology. This study challenges the implicit assumption of magazine editors and advertisers who defend digitally altered fashion photos by saying “our readers understand.” This study identified magazine images that promoted “the thin ideal” and then recovered the body image in a second photo that was digitally altered and restored to a healthy slimness. In an experiment 104 subjects viewed a total of six photographs, three “thin ideal” originals and three restored versions that transformed the models to slender as opposed to extremely thin. Findings indicated that prior exposure to very thin models, as opposed to versions restored to slenderness, reduced subjects sensitivity to the difference between extremely thin and slender versions, increased their self consciousness, and eroded their healthy eating attitudes. Furthermore, prior exposure to the thin ideal disempowered the subjects even after viewing both versions of each photograph: they were less likely to take action protesting the manipulation to editors and advertisers.
A Longitudinal Analysis of Network News Editing Strategies from 1969 through 1997 • Richard Schaefer, University of New Mexico • Four editing variables were tracked through a content analysis that spanned two 14-year periods. The analysis revealed that synthetic-montage increased and continuity-realism decreased across both periods, as network news editors embraced shorter sound bites, more special effects, and an increasing use of montage-edited footage. Quicker overall cutting rates and the use of more asynchronous sound increased from 1969 through 1983, but appeared to level off over the next 14-year period. When taken together, the results suggest that television journalism has evolved from more “camera of record” news techniques in favor of more thematically complex editing strategies.
Representing Class: John Vachon’s Portrait of 1940s Dubuque • James Tracy, University of Iowa • This project is an interpretive analysis of photographs of Dubuque, Iowa taken by FSA photographer John Vachon in 1940. This essay argues that the photographs constitute substantive historical evidence augmenting the existing history of a working class environment and culture. The paper considers the labor-management antagonism in Dubuque and the meaning and importance of images to interpretive historical inquiry.
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