Image Bite Politics: News and the Visual Framing of Elections

ISBN-13: 9780195372076 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 344 str.

Maria Elizabeth Grabe; Erik Page Bucy

Opis

Image Bite Politics is the first book to systematically assess the visual presentation of presidential candidates in network news coverage of elections and to connect these visual images with shifts in public opinion. Presenting the results of a comprehensive visual analysis of general election news from 1992-2004, encompassing four presidential campaigns, the authors highlight the remarkably potent influence of television images when it comes to evaluating leaders. The book draws from a variety of disciplines, including political science, behavioral biology, cognitive neuroscience, and media studies, to investigate the visual framing of elections in an incisive, fresh, and interdisciplinary fashion. Moreover, the book presents findings that are counterintuitive and challenge widely held assumptions--yet are supported by systematic data. For example, Republicans receive consistently more favorable visual treatment than Democrats, countering the conventional wisdom of a "liberal media bias"; and image bites are more prevalent, and in some elections more potent, in shaping voter opinions of candidates than sound bites. Finally, the authors provide a foundation for promoting visual literacy among news audiences and bring the importance of visual analysis to the forefront of research.

Recenzje

Grabe and Bucy introduce contemporary neuroscience to the analysis of voters' perception and responses to the televised coverage of politics. Because emotional responses are more rapid than cognitive analysis and judgment, this approach shows why theories based on print communication or "rational choice" often fail to describe political life. It's past time that a scientific understanding of non-verbal cues and visual framing are integrated to a comprehensive assessment of television news, campaigns, and the emotional dimension of politics. The result is a book that should become a classic that is required reading throughout the political science discipline (and not just in studies of the role of media in American politics).

O autorze

Maria Elizabeth Grabe is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University, Bloomington and a Research Associate of the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa. Erik Page Bucy is Associate Professor in the Department of Telecommunications and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of Informatics at Indiana University, Bloomington.