Visual Communication 2006 Abstracts
Visual Communication Division
The Aldine Hypothesis Revisited • Kay Amert, University of Iowa • First formulated by Stanley Morison in the 1920s, the Aldine hypothesis proposed that the roman type of the Italian Renaissance publisher, Aldus Manutius, was the central influence in the design of later romans. The paper examines the development of the hypothesis and situates it in the cultural concerns of the period. It reevaluates the hypothesis based on fresh analysis of romans used In Paris, emphasizing the formation there of an international idiom for typographic communications.
The Visual Framing Of The Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina: A Depiction In The American Press • Porismita Borah, University of Wisconsin-Madison ? Newspapers worldwide produced different images of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and of hurricane Katrina in 2005, two natural disasters that have recently stunned audiences all over the globe. This study examines how the American press; the NYT and the Post, framed the disasters and their aftermath by analyzing the content of all photographs they published during the first week after the calamities hit.
The lives of French women through the lens of Janine Niepce • Claude Cookman, Indiana University • This paper analyzes Janine Niepce’s photographic documentation of the lives of French women, situating it in historical, sociological, and biographical contexts. It argues that for over fifty years she was the only photojournalist to devote sustained attention to French women and the French women’s movement.
What Hurricane Katrina Revealed: A visual Analysis of the Hurricane Coverage by News Wires and U.S. Newspapers • Shahira Fahmy, James Kelly and Yung Soo Kim, Southern Illinois University • Results of a visual content analysis of American newspaper front-page photos and photographs distributed by the Associated Press and Reuters wire services revealed that newspapers were far more likely to run images depicting African-Americans from Louisiana as emotionally distraught victims of Hurricane Katrina than the wire content would have suggested. Gatekeeping decisions based on values of human interest, race stereotyping, and proximity seem to have been the principal factors driving editorial decisions.
Thirty Years Of Sarcasm And Biting Humor: Newspaper Use And Content Of Editorial Cartoons • Howard D. Fisher, Stan Alost, Tom Hrach and Yan Li, Ohio University • This study sought to discover whether editorial cartoons have been increasingly marginalized and restricted since the 1970s as cartoonists claim. The researchers conducted a content analysis of editorial cartoons appearing in four newspapers (two regional and two national). The results showed that even though there are fewer staff-drawn cartoons appearing in 2004, those cartoons are just as critical as those produced in the 1970s, the time that cartoonists often consider the height of their profession.
The Morality of Photojournalists: Reactions to Kevin Carter’s 1994 Pulitzer-winning photograph • Yung Soo Kim and James D. Kelly, Southern Illinois University Carbondale • A modified photo-elicitation method (Smith & Woodward, 1999) was used to gauge the assessment of six news media readers and two journalists of the morality surrounding Kevin Carter’s 1994 Pulitzer-winning photograph of a collapsed Sudanese girl as a vulture awaits her death. All respondents accepted the journalistic rationale for making the photo and agreed that journalists must adhere to a different ethic than others.
Get Me Up to Speed… Pronto! • Randy Livingston, Middle Tennessee State University • We have more sources of news available to us than ever before. Readers having less time to read news and more news sources available to them (via the Internet) is a growing problem. How are newspaper Web site designers addressing this problem? This pilot study analyzes interactive features offered by popular news Web sites. This analysis specifically addresses what methods are being employed and how these methods enhance a reader’s ability to learn more efficiently.
The Emotional Effect of Negative News Photographs • Renee Martin-Kratzer, University of Florida and Esther Thorson, University of Missouri • When faced with gruesome news images, picture editors must balance their duty of informing the public with the possibility of offending readers. Sometimes a compromise is made to publish the images but alter the size and color in the hopes of lessening the emotional effects. This study uses two within-subject experiments to determine if manipulating the structural features and the emotional content of photographs affected viewers’ responses.
Tell me a story about Arabs: An analysis of readers’ interpretations of visual and verbal narratives in a National Geographic story on Saudi Arabia • Andrew L. Mendelson and Fabienne Darling-Wolf, Temple University • The purpose of this paper is to examine how the pictures and texts in a photo story interact to produce meaning for readers. Using focus groups combined with elements of experiments, readers examined a recent National Geographic Magazine story on Saudi Arabia as a case study into the relationship between photography and writing in a photo story.
New Orleans in Pictures: Determining and Interpreting the Iconic Images of Hurricane Katrina • Andrea Miller and Shearon Roberts, Louisiana State University • This study seeks to determine and interpret the iconic media images of Hurricane Katrina as decided by survey respondents. The major events of the century have been framed by the media and Katrina was no different. However, technology and 24-hour cable news now offer more images for the audience to digest.
Comparing Verbal and Visually-Elicited Responses to Advertisements: A Test of Two Complementary Theories • Lawrence C. Soley and Angela Speed, Marquette University • This study compared responses to a print advertisement using verbal instruments (i.e., a semantic differential scale and a sentence completion test) and a visual (i.e., pictorial) instrument in the context of Paivio’s (1971) theory that humans employ two distinct modes of mental processing – visual and verbal. The results show that the two verbal response measures produced similar evaluations of the ad, but the responses to the pictorial test differed from these.
Shield law extended to cover unpublished photographs: A case study • Dustin Supa, University of Miami • This paper uses a case study approach to examine how unpublished newspaper photographs became the target of a subpoena in the state of Colorado. It examines how the newspaper was able to keep its unpublished photographs confidential, and also examines potential implications of shield laws for visual news, particularly photographs.
A snapshot of photojournalists’ attitudes toward the ethics of digital manipulation • Brad Thompson, Linfield College • This Web-based survey asked photojournalists to respond to 19 statements regarding the ethics of various digital manipulations for cover, spot news and feature photos. It found that photojournalists had a significant difference in attitudes toward the digital manipulations for the different kinds of pictures. It also found that National Press Photographers Association members’ attitudes were significantly different than nonmembers regarding cover and feature pictures.
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