Multimodal news framing effects

Visuals in news media play a vital role in framing citizens’ political preferences. Yet, compared to the written word, visual images are undervalued in political communication research. Using framing theory, this thesis redresses the balance by studying the combined, or multimodal, effects of visual and verbal media. Three experimental studies using international affairs news – a ready source of compelling visuals – address the following questions: (a) what is the individual and combined contribution of visuals and text to framing effects? (b) what information processing mechanisms underpin multimodal framing effects? And, (c) how do multimodal framing effects differ in different media formats (i.e., news articles and videos). Findings show that visuals evoke an emotional reaction that drives political behaviour. However, visual cues can be overpowered by systematically processed verbal content, especially when presented in news articles compared to videos. By placing visuals and text on an equal footing, this thesis takes a step towards a fully multimodal news framing theory

Video killed the news article? Comparing multimodal framing effects in news videos and articles

The recent proliferation of online videos captured at the scene of news events begs the question: Do news videos have a meaningful impact on citizens’ political opinions and behaviors that is different than that of news articles? This was examined in an experiment using carefully matched videos and articles about the European refugee crisis. Findings show that articles generated stronger intentions to help refugees than videos, and this was mediated by the depth with which the news story was processed. Despite their increasing prominence and intuitively impactful qualities, news videos do not deliver more powerful effects than news articles

A clearer picture: the contribution of visuals and text to framing effects

Visuals in news media help define, or frame issues, but less is known about how they influence opinions and behavior. The authors use an experiment to present image and text exemplars of frames from war and conflict news in isolation and in image-text congruent and incongruent pairs. Results show that, when presented alone, images generate stronger framing effects on opinions and behavioral intentions than text. When images and text are presented together, as in a typical news report, the frame carried by the text influences opinions regardless of the accompanying image, whereas the frame carried by the image drives behavioral intentions irrespective of the linked text. These effects are explained by the salience enhancing and emotional consequences of visuals

Repetition suppression and memory for faces is reduced in adults with autism spectrum conditions

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are associated with a number of atypicalities in face processing, including difficulties in face memory. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this difficulty are unclear. In neurotypical individuals, repeated presentation of the same face is associated with a reduction in activity, known as repetition suppression (RS), in the fusiform face area (FFA). However, to date, no studies have investigated RS to faces in individuals with ASC, or the relationship between RS and face memory. Here, we measured RS to faces and geometric shapes in individuals with a clinical diagnosis of an ASC and in age and IQ matched controls. Relative to controls, the ASC group showed reduced RS to faces in bilateral FFA and reduced performance on a standardized test of face memory. By contrast, RS to shapes in object-selective regions and object memory did not differ between groups. Individual variation in face memory performance was positively correlated with RS in regions of left parietal and prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest difficulties in face memory in ASC may be a consequence of differences in the way faces are stored and/or maintained across a network of regions involved in both visual perception and shortterm/ working memory

The effect of consumption of corruption-related news on political cynicism

Disenchantment with politicians and politics –also called political cynicism– is understood as a phenomenon that deteriorates the functioning of democracy. One of the factors that can impact this disenchantment is the appearance of corruption within the political sphere. Prior research has studied the relationship between corruption and trust in politics; this study aims to investigate the link between corruption-related news and political cynicism in Spain. The study uses an experimental approach to investigate the impact of news reporting corruption on the political cynicism of Spanish citizens and to argue that the consumption of corruption-related news increases cynical attitudes and political cynicism. The present study also investigates whether the involvement of renowned politicians, along with the perceived level of corruption that is reported, has an impact on political cynicism. The results show that political cynicism does not depend solely on consumption of corruptionrelated news; the involvement of renowned politicians in corruption cases and differences in education levels also play a key role in increasing cynicism. Based on the results of the participants assigned to the control group, the study also reveals that Spanish citizens express a baseline level of cynicism that is already very high

Probing the primordial power spectra with inflationary priors

We investigate constraints on power spectra of the primordial curvature and tensor perturbations with priors based on single-field slow-roll inflation models. We stochastically draw the Hubble slow-roll parameters and generate the primordial power spectra using the inflationary flow equations. Using data from recent observations of CMB and several measurements of geometrical distances in the late Universe, Bayesian parameter estimation and model selection are performed for models that have separate priors on the slow-roll parameters. The same analysis is also performed adopting the standard parameterization of the primordial power spectra. We confirmed that the scale-invariant Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum is disfavored with increased significance from previous studies. While current observations appear to be optimally modeled with some simple models of single-field slow-roll inflation, data is not enough constraining to distinguish these models.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in JCA