This project investigated the ways in which literacy practices are represented in visual images in a range of British newspapers. The aims of the research were: a) to contribute to theoretical understandings of literacy as socio-cultural practice and their implications for educational policy discourses about literacy b) to offer a framework and new data about the construction of visual messages in the media. c) to develop computer-based methodologies for dealing with visual data which are of relevance to social research more generally. The data showed that a mismatch exists between text-based stories and visual representations of literacy practices in the press: whilst text-based stories present a view of literacy as a neutral, technical, cognitive skill or deficit, the visual representations show it to be embedded in everyday social practice and to carry powerful ritual and symbolic as well as functional meanings

Hamilton, Mary

Shaw, Ian

English

Lancaster E-Prints

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Visual Representations of Literacy in the Press  
Final Report to the Leverhulme Trust 
February 2001 
Mary Hamilton, Literacy Research Group,  
Department of Educational Research, 
 Lancaster University  
m.hamilton@lancaster.ac.uk 
Technical Report 
1 Selecting and Cataloguing the Images 
Using the findings from the pilot study, the project began by examining all the national daily 
newspapers available in England: the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Express, The Guardian, 
The Independent, The Sun, The Star, and The Daily Telegraph. From these papers we 
decided that a contrasting sample could be provided by four papers: The Daily Mail, The 
Guardian, The Sun, and The Daily Telegraph.  
 
We began by selecting  one issue of each of the four. The research associate looked at  
these to familiarise himself with the papers and so that he could establish what he was 
looking for in selecting images.  This also meant that he could get an overall impression of 
the type of images which occur in each paper and yet have a manageable number of images 
to work with in developing a system for selection.  
 
Once the sample papers had been selected the next task was to identify one hundred 
sample images from each publication. Beginning at approximately 14th January of this year, 
each paper was scrutinised and one hundred images representing one or more of the 
categories of literacy practice outlined in the orientating framework, were identified from a 
period anywhere between two to three weeks depending on the paper in question. This 
process involved going back through the newspapers many times and in discussion with the 
research team, refining our original thinking.  There are a wide variety of types of image in 
the papers and we also had difficulties in deciding the boundaries of an image - for example 
in montages and sets of images placed very closely together or typography and logos 
designed for their visual appeal. There are also many boundary cases, such as wearing a 
watch, car number plates, symbols and logos that are not strictly writing but are powerful 
semiotic markers on a continuum with it. 
 
It was soon apparent that the category of writing on the body would dominate the corpus if 
every sporting image was included. To avoid having an unbalanced corpus with a 
proliferation of these images it was decide that only one instance of a sporting image should 
be included from each date of the paper in question. A separate index of all the other 
occurrences of images of this type was made. Similarly weekend editions were excluded as 
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it was felt they offered too much variety of format and style and were dominated by feature 
writing rather than news. 
 
 
2 Deciding on the Unit of Analysis 
We confirmed that the central unit of analysis would be the image. This  was important to 
making decisions about assigning identification numbers and in organizing the files that 
would compose the hermeneutic project in Atlas-ti. 
 
We decided, however, that for the analysis it was important to record the image within its 
accompanying context, since these are images designed to be read as part of a narrative. 
This we called an Item. Captions, headlines, other pictures or text in any combination could 
be included as part of the item. Thus the image was the central unit of analysis but its 
relationship to the other elements within the item were of interest. This is reflected in the 
structure of the coding map.  The message conveyed by an individual image is determined 
by its unique framing: 
 
 Within its context of the “news item” containing caption(s), headline(s) other graphics and 
text story 
 Within its context of the whole page layout, and to a lesser extent, the whole issue of the 
paper. 
 Within its context of  all previous issues of that paper 
 Within its broad context of the news media industry, not just press but TV etc.  
 Within its context of traditions and genres of photographic representation (art, 
documentary, commercial) 
 
 
3. Selecting the Images 
We made a total count of the number of images in each newspaper  before selecting those 
which contained literacy practices. To do this it was necessary to decide which images we 
would include in the total count. All images were included except for  adverts, clip art, maps 
and graphs, and headshots. 
 
From the total set of images, those with a literacy element were identified.  This was done as 
inclusively as possible.  Thus we selected not only images of literacy events, in which 
someone is interacting with a written text or some other literacy artefact,  but also images 
reproducing literacy artefacts themselves, and of literacy in the environment, including on the 
body. 
 
As mentioned above, the difficulties in deciding the boundaries of an image arose 
particularly where there were montages of connected and overlapping images and where 
there were sets of images placed very closely together within a single news item, obviously 
meant to be read together.  In the end, we classified real "montages" as one image; 
overlapping images or images linked through the narrative of the item were counted as 
separate images, but given an ID which made it clear that they occurred together in the 
context of a single item. 
 
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Included:  any image that contains a literacy artefact (e.g. computer, pen, lecturn), 
especially interested in images where people are interacting with such artefacts which 
we classify as “literacy events” 
 
Excluded: advertisements, fictional images (e.g. stills from TV soaps), and graphics 
without a photographic element (i.e. not cartoons or maps). Non-linguistic semiotic 
markers (like logos). 
 
We made a supplementary corpus containing many images that were seen as too marginal, 
in terms of our criteria, to include in the main study, but none the less are of some interest in 
terms of our theoretical approach to literacy.  This corpus was almost as big as the main 
corpus but the distribution of types of literacy content was different within it, with many more 
images of literacy in the environment and reproductions of documents and correspondingly 
few literacy events. 
 
 
4 Practicalities 
We developed a procedure for selecting the images in the newspaper.  First, the researcher 
went through a whole newspaper selecting and marking all the images in the paper that 
should be included. Each image was numbered in pencil and the total recorded on a 
separate sheet. Any boundary images were discussed with the research director, and a 
decision reached about whether to include them or not. We then went through the 
newspaper again and marked all those images containing literacy practices with a coloured 
sticker. In some newspapers we indicated the number of Literacy  images on each page in 
the top corner if there was more than one.  
 
Each full page containing a selected image was photocopied at 50%.  Broadsheets were 
done in two sections and then cut and pasted together, so that they would fit an A4 sized 
piece of paper. Each item was also photocopied to fit on to an A4 sheet. Where the item was 
too large only the image was photocopied and where it was small, it was enlarged. All photo 
copying was done using the photo setting  on the photocopy machine. The photocopies were 
numbered and filed in plastic pockets in date and numerical order, one for each newspaper. 
The ID of the picture, the date and page number of the paper from which it had originated 
were written on a sticker on the plastic folder.  
 
We created, for each newspaper, an index sheet containing information about the individual 
issues (newspaper, date, day)  and counts for the total number of images, total number of 
images depicting literacy practices, percentage of images containing literacy practices and 
the code number assigned to the photocopies in that paper. 
 
 
5 Scanning Images  
Using a canon scanner each image was scanned and saved as a jpeg graphic file. This 
choice of format allowed an easy transition from corpus directory to the analytical Atlas 
software. Proportions i.e. a scale of one to one was maintained where ever possible, the 
exceptions being where it was thought the image size (in terms of its memory requirements) 
was prohibitive. Those images that appeared in colour retained this attribute in every 
instance. Due to both the printing processes involved and the low quality paper used for 
obvious reasons in the newspaper industry, many of the images showed signs the moiré 
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effect. Steps where taken to correct this by submitting the image to a further descreening 
scan. 
 
From very early on in the scanning process it became apparent that along with the scanned 
image a copy of the page from which it was taken would be an absolute necessity for 
meaningful analysis. Due to the size of the medium involved, scanning each page was not a 
viable option. Initially we thought of using a digital camera to capture each page, but this was 
dismissed in favour of the more convenient and simple solution of photocopies. Despite the 
significant drop in reproduction quality displayed using this method, it was not so severe that 
it affected any of the analysis and the subsequent discussion of page layout and image 
positioning. It was felt that these, along with a set of  thumbnail prints, a comprehensive 
index, and the hermeneutic unit of the corpus in the Atlas software, all angles required for 
the project’s analysis were covered. 
 
Once all these processes had been completed it was decided that in light of the unstable 
qualities of the originals that they should be housed in suitable archive standard storage. 
Consequently in an effort to preserve their condition the papers were filed in special boxes in 
an acid free environment. 
 
 
6 Creating the Atlas-ti Project (The Hermeneutic Unit) 
The scanned images were imported into Atlas-ti as the primary documents of the corpus. 
This was a big improvement over NUDIST which we had used during the pilot project. 
NUDIST could only work with text documents so we had to create a verbal description of 
each image and code from this. Atlas-ti enables us to keep close to the primary visual data 
and to code directly from it. Sheets of thumbnails were produced, and these mini-images 
could also be called up on the screen in parallel to the Atlas-ti program. 
 
Codes and text memos developed from our coding map were attached to the images by 
defining a rectangular portion of the image (known as a quotation) and creating a hyperlink 
with the code. Links between images could be made in the same way.  
Although much of the work takes place on-line, a variety of printed outputs from the project  
can be made available. This can be customised and we used the facility to create coding 
profiles of each image and summary matrices of the frequency of occurrence of codes and 
combinations of codes. 
 
 
7 Evaluating the Software 
We found Atlas-ti entirely adequate for the job we had set out to do in this project. We offer 
here an evaluation of the software based on our experience. 
 
(1) Storing and retrieving the images was no problem. 
 
(2) Attaching codes to quotations on the images was  not technically difficult but we 
discovered (from consulting the software developer, trainer and other users through 
discussion list) that we were pioneering this use of the software and it took a while to design 
a sensible system for spatially attaching the large number of codes we were working with. 
The template we developed can be found in Appendix  1.  
 
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(3) Retrieving quotations is not possible in the same way as it is possible to retrieve text 
quotations from text documents. Simply the reference ID is retrieved for the quotation. This is 
still adequate for the purpose of searching, cross-referencing and retrieving whole images 
for comparison on the basis of particular characteristics  - but it is a definite disadvantage 
over text documents.  A capability for retrieving thumbnail images would go someway 
towards solving this as would some visual equivalent of the scrolling margin that shows the 
coding attached to text documents.   
 
(4) Particular features of the software were generally annoying to use. For example, the way 
the code list appears on screen, requiring the user to scroll through a vast unstructured list. 
We learned to structure the list through careful choice of code words, but the software does 
not warn you that this will be necessary. The key strategy is to decide early on which 
overarching themes will emerge eventually as “families” in the analysis. These codes should 
be put into the code list first and others named accordingly. 
 
(5) Atlas-ti offers a very flexible set of objects  for both closed codes (dichotomous and multi-
category) and the more open ended commentaries that we still needed to use for some 
complex areas, especially of visual meaning. Atlas-ti was superb in supporting our thinking in 
all these ways 
 
(6) We found the search tool a little complex to understand, but in the end we found that we 
could do the multi-level searches we needed, using a combination of filters and families. 
 
(7) We still felt the need to have a good off-line record of the images, their context in the 
paper, layout etc and devised an image report which gave an edited profile of the codings 
attached to each image. 
 
(8) The process of creating output reports from the software is rather clumsy and longwinded  
and a great deal of extraneous information prints out with the essentials. It was possible to 
do anything we wanted to do, but this often involved several steps of repetitive editing down 
(e.g. to create matrices, code lists, and the image reports), in conjunction with other software 
like EXCEL and WORD. Instructions are included in Appendix 2.  
 
(9) Likewise, we found the visual network tool useful but we still amplified it by using other 
independent software (INSPIRATION). The interface between all these is fairly 
straightforward but the dream is for everything to be provided in one package! 
 
(10) The basic statistical capabilities offered by Atlas-ti were fine for our purposes. It also 
supports qualitative comparisons among limited subsets of the data. 
 
(11) An archive for the group discussion list would have been immensely helpful to us.  
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Appendix 1: Attaching Codes to On-line Images within Atlas-ti 
Example for S68 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Image ID and All  Memos 
(attached to the image as a whole, not via quotations) 
Literacy Content: 
Type (e.g. Event) 
Domain and Setting 
Emergent Themes 
Mediational Processes: 
Compositional Features  
Participant Characteristics 
News Production 
Practices and Values  
(Source Data Genre etc) 
Artefact 
Codes 
Mediational Processes:  
Components of the News Item 
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Appendix 2: Instructions for Creating a Matrix Table with Atlas and Excel 
 
 
 
 
 Decide what data sets you wish to interrogate e.g. Daily Mail and Artefacts. 
 
  Filter the appropriate families from any of the four windows . 
(Primary Documents, Quotations, Codes, Memos).  
N.B.  These families may exist, but may need to be created before they can be used. (refer to Atlas manual if unsure about the creation of families.) 
 
 From the toolbar running along the top of the Atlas window select CODES /OUTPUT/CODES-PRIMARY-DOCUMENTS-TABLE. 
 
  When prompted select the EDITOR choice from the OUTPUT dialog box. 
 
 From the Editor window cut and the relevant data and paste it into word. 
 
 Save as a TXT file. 
 
 Open that TXT file into Excel. 
 
 When you open the TXT file you should get a wizard prompt 
 
 Step One, select the fixed width option from the original data type box 
 
 Click on NEXT 
 
 In the resulting dialog box check the data to make sure there is a vertical line in between each column of data. If there are omissions simply click the 
mouse cursor where a line is desired. 
 
 Again click on NEXT. 
 
 On the next dialog box simply click on FINISH. 
 
 Save the resulting document as an Excel workbook 
 
 Format the data to allow printing. 
 


Visual representations of literacy in the press : report to the Leverhulme Trust February 2001.

http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/32684/1/Full_Final_Report_Visual_Representations_of_Literacy_in_the_Press.pdf

Visual representations of literacy in the press : report to the Leverhulme Trust February 2001.

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