A picture’s worth: visual framing, social media, and protest perceptions

From news coverage to social network services, political images are all around us. In short, images matter, whether it is about electoral campaigns, protests, or even wars. It is well-known that the media deliberately chooses and highlights certain aspects of events to shape our understanding – a process known as framing or visual framing. However, previous studies have paid less attention to the photographic choices made behind the scenes as well as the role of individuals both creators and consumers of information especially in the context of social media.

To address these gaps, this study defines visual framing as a series of choices made by journalists and the public in everyday photography to influence viewers’ responses. Then, it examines a large collection of tweets and associated images related to Black Lives Matter protests to understand how individuals make pictorial decisions and their relationship with text-based contents. Additionally, the study conducts a survey experiment to analyze how the public responds to different pieces of visual information. This study finds that individuals do make specific pictorial decisions based on their attitudes toward events, and image context and some photographic choices impact how viewers interpret political events. In essence, the current study shows that we take a photograph of a political event based on our perspectives, and images we consume can shape our understanding and attitudes of the portrayed political events.