Self-presentation strategies and the visual framing of political leaders on Instagram: evidence from the eventful 2019 Istanbul mayoral elections

This study aims to explore how political leaders used Instagram to execute self-presentation strategies in mayoral elections, including the dominant use of personalized tactics. The article reports findings of a visual framing analysis of 2,776 images featuring 2019 Istanbul mayoral election candidates Ekrem İmamoğlu (the Republican People’s Party, CHP) and Binali Yıldırım (the Justice and Development Party, AKP). The case is unusual because the initial election, which had resulted in İmamoğlu’s victory, was cancelled and a re-run was subsequently held. After many events, İmamoğlu succeeded again, becoming the first opposition politician to take control of Istanbul from the ruling AKP. In this study, we adapt Grabe and Bucy’s (2009) quantitative visual framing analysis to examine Instagram posts, from candidacy announcements until the election re-run. The results show that both candidates used the Ideal Candidate frame, with occasional increases in the frequency of the application of the Populist Campaigner frame. Self-frames in different time periods during this election are discussed, as well the frames that voters engaged with most frequently.

Infinite Interpretations? A Corpus-based Study for the Identification and Interpretation of Competing Frames in Parliament-representations in Hungary

Political communication highly depends on generic figurative frames such as Politics Is War, Object, Sport, Art and Politics Is Landscape. Regarding political art, it is suggested that artists use complex cognitive solutions (e.g. parallel issue-specific frames) in creative ways which are connected with one of the major generic frames. The study discusses parliament-representations (made between 2006 and 2015) which are not only attractive elements of the cityscape; thus, not literary representations of the building. Using the method of visual framing, the analyses (1) describe the artworks, (2) interpret the occurring symbols and metaphors determined contextually, and (3) reveal the ideological and power relations. Summing up, political artworks can be comprehended according to conventional mental schemas. However, artists usually create a minimum of two competing specifications of the general frames occurring at the same time, and let the viewer choose the one that fits better with their worldview.

Picturing donations: Do images influence conservation fundraising?

Many environmental organizations use photographic images to engage donors and supporters. While images play a role in fundraising, visual framing remains understudied in the environmental field. Few real-world experiments have examined which types of images result in higher donations to biodiversity conservation. We examined the role of images in conservation fundraising through a public experiment at Zoomarine, a marine park located in southern Portugal. Zoomarine runs a program called Dolphin Emotions where visitors pay to learn about dolphin biology and to interact with dolphins. We placed a donation box and a large informational poster about the Marine Megafauna Foundation, a conservation partner, in the lounge of the Dolphin Emotions program, which is open to participants and their families. The text on the poster, which solicited donations for the Marine Megafauna Foundation, was held constant, while four different image conditions were tested: dolphins, ocean wildlife, children, and people staring out from the poster (i.e., “watching eyes”). Each image condition was displayed for three days at a time and was on display for at least seven randomly assigned three-day periods over the course of 91 days. 20,944 visitors passed the donation box and the four poster conditions during this time and a total of € 952.40 was collected. The differences in mean donations in € per visitor per 3-day period were not statistically significant, F(3, 25) = 0.745, p = 0.54. Thus, we did not find that different images had a significant influence on donations to conservation. This may be due to our choice of visual frames or to the use of a donation box, which is a passive fundraising channel. Future research should examine how visual framing influences donations in other public settings and should test the influence of other visual frames on philanthropic behavior.

Just “performance nonsense”?: How recipients process news photos of activists’ symbolic actions about climate change politics

In this article, I investigate how recipients make sense of images that show symbolic actions by environmental activists during two recent United Nations Climate Change Conferences. Environmental advocacy groups are successful in creating visibility for their symbolic actions via news visuals, but little empirical evidence exists about how ordinary media recipients engage with this type of imagery. Can they understand the intended meaning of complex visual rhetoric used by environmental activists? I use think-aloud protocols to uncover the cognitive strategies which are used in processing these stylised visual claims. Results show that news photos rarely manage to communicate the intended meaning of symbolic actions. By systematically analysing various stages of visual frame processing, this study offers insights into specific configurations of the image-viewer relationship that cause high levels of ambiguity and prevent staged visual claims from being understood as intended. Yet I also find empirical evidence for a visual framing approach that works well and describe this recipe for effective communication via symbolic action photography.

When the lens is too wide: The political consequences of the visual dehumanization of refugees

Photojournalistic images shape our understanding of sociopolitical events. How humans are depicted in images may have far-reaching consequences for our attitudes towards them. Social psychology has shown how the visualization of an ‘identifiable victim effect’ can elicit empathic responses. However, images of identifiable victims in the media are the exception rather than the norm. In the context of the Syrian refugee crisis, the majority of images in Western media depicted refugees as large unidentifiable groups. While the effects of the visual depiction of single individuals are well-known, the ways in which the visual framing of large groups operates, and its social and political consequences, remain unknown. We here focus on the visual depiction of refugees to understand how exposure to the dominant visual framing used in the media, depicting them in large groups of faceless individuals, affects their dehumanization and sets off political consequences. To that end we brought together insights from social psychology, social sciences and the humanities to test a range of hypotheses using methods from social and political psychology in 10 studies with the participation of 3951 European citizens. Seeing images of large groups resulted in greater implicit dehumanization compared with images depicting refugees in small groups. Images of large groups are also explicitly rated as more dehumanizing, and when coupled with meta-data such as newspaper headlines, images continue to play a significant and independent role on how (de)humanizing we perceive such news coverage to be. Moreover, after viewing images of large groups, participants showed increased preference for more dominant and less trustworthy-looking political leaders and supported fewer pro-refugee policies and more anti-refugee policies. In terms of a mechanistic understanding of these effects, the extent to which participants felt pity for refugees depicted in large groups as opposed to small groups mediated the effect of visual framing on the choice of a more authoritarian-looking leader. What we see in the media and how it is shown not only has consequences for the ways in which we relate to other human beings and our behaviour towards them but, ultimately, for the functioning of our political systems.

KONSTRUKSI PEMBINGKAIAN VISUAL EDHY PRABOWO DALAM KASUS KORUPSI BENUR PADA ILUSTRASI SAMPUL MAJALAH DAN KORAN TEMPO

Tempo publications between 23-30 November 2020, raised the issue of corruption in the export of lobster seeds (Bahasa: Benur). Tempo tried to present the figure of Edhy Prabowo on several covers by using a variety of intriguing visual illustrations, surreal depiction and signs. There is an effort to frame the figure of Edhy Prabowo in the case of fry export, visually as well as textually in the article contents . This study uses a qualitative approach with framing analysis method. The Gamson-Modigliani framing analysis model is used to analyze the main cover line texts contained in the cover illustration. To analyze Visual Framing, Rodriguez-Dimitrova's 4 levels of visual framing model was used. Of the 4 covers studied, Tempo seems to be trying to present its main subject in a denotative way, by using Edhy Prabowo's caricature and fry visuals appeared as the image focus. Abstract subjects such as 'export' are presented connotatively through symbols. Edhy Prabowo's visual framing process using illustrations on the cover of Tempo media looks like a visual story highlights, depicting one chapter after another. First act, Edhy Prabowo as an intellectual actor who has power in the fry export game. Second act, Edhy Prabowo fell into his own toy. Third act, flashback of the scheming of new rules for fry export. The fourth act, disclosure of the characters behind the scenes.